Prologue To Arden Of Feversham Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEFGGHHIIEEJJ KBLLCCMNOOPPKBQQRRSSLove dark as death and fierce as fire on wing | A |
Sustains in sin the soul that feels it cling | A |
Like flame whose tongues are serpents hope and fear | B |
Die when a love more dire than hate draws near | B |
And stings to death the heart it cleaves in twain | C |
And leaves in ashes all but fear and pain | C |
Our lustrous England rose to life and light | D |
From Rome's and hell's immitigable night | D |
And music laughed and quickened from her breath | E |
When first her sons acclaimed Elizabeth | F |
Her soul became a lyre that all men heard | G |
Who felt their souls give back her lyric word | G |
Yet now not all at once her perfect power | H |
Spake man's deep heart abode awhile its hour | H |
Abode its hour of utterance not to wake | I |
Till Marlowe's thought in thunderous music spake | I |
But yet not yet was passion's tragic breath | E |
Thrilled through with sense of instant life and death | E |
Life actual even as theirs who watched the strife | J |
Death dark and keen and terrible as life | J |
Here first was truth in song made perfect here | K |
Woke first the war of love and hate and fear | B |
A man too vile for thought's or shame's control | L |
Holds empire on a woman's loftier soul | L |
And withers it to wickedness in vain | C |
Shame quickens thought with penitential pain | C |
In vain dark chance's fitful providence | M |
Withholds the crime and chills the spirit of sense | N |
It wakes again in fire that burns away | O |
Repentance weak as night devoured of day | O |
Remorse and ravenous thirst of sin and crime | P |
Rend and consume the soul in strife sublime | P |
And passion cries on pity till it hear | K |
And tremble as with love that casts out fear | B |
Dark as the deed and doom he gave to fame | Q |
For ever lies the sovereign singer's name | Q |
Sovereign and regent on the soul he lives | R |
While thought gives thanks for aught remembrance gives | R |
And mystery sees the imperial shadow stand | S |
By Marlowe's side alone at Shakespeare's hand | S |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
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