The Eve Of Revolution Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABABABABCCBAADEE FGFHFHFHIIGJJHAA KIKIKIKILLIMMINN AOAOAOAPAAOQQORR SESESESETTEUUEVV ASASAAASWWSAASCC XFXFXFXFAAFXXFAA AXAXAXAXAAXIIXXX AOAOAOAOPPOXXOPP PAPAPAPAYYAXXAAA XAXAXAXAXXAAAAXX TX

The trumpets of the four winds of the worldA
From the ends of the earth blow battle the night heavesB
With breasts palpitating and wings refurledA
With passion of couched limbs as one who grievesB
Sleeping and in her sleep she sees uncurledA
Dreams serpent shapen such as sickness weavesB
Down the wild wind of vision caught and whirledA
Dead leaves of sleep thicker than autumn leavesB
Shadows of storm shaped thingsC
Flights of dim tribes of kingsC
The reaping men that reap men for their sheavesB
And without grain to yieldA
Their scythe swept harvest fieldA
Thronged thick with men pursuing and fugitivesD
Dead foliage of the tree of sleepE
Leaves blood coloured and golden blown from deep to deepE
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I hear the midnight on the mountains cryF
With many tongues of thunders and I hearG
Sound and resound the hollow shield of skyF
With trumpet throated winds that charge and cheerH
And through the roar of the hours that fighting flyF
Through flight and fight and all the fluctuant fearH
A sound sublimer than the heavens are highF
A voice more instant than the winds are clearH
Say to my spirit TakeI
Thy trumpet too and makeI
A rallying music in the void night's earG
Till the storm lose its trackJ
And all the night go backJ
Till as through sleep false life knows true life nearH
Thou know the morning through the nightA
And through the thunder silence and through darkness lightA
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I set the trumpet to my lips and blowK
The height of night is shaken the skies breakI
The winds and stars and waters come and goK
By fits of breath and light and sound that wakeI
As out of sleep and perish as the showK
Built up of sleep when all her strengths forsakeI
The sense compelling spirit the depths glowK
The heights flash and the roots and summits shakeI
Of earth in all her mountainsL
And the inner foamless fountainsL
And wellsprings of her fast bound forces quakeI
Yea the whole air of lifeM
Is set on fire of strifeM
Till change unmake things made and love remakeI
Reason and love whose names are oneN
Seeing reason is the sunlight shed from love the sunN
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The night is broken eastward is it dayA
Or but the watchfires trembling here and thereO
Like hopes on memory's devastated wayA
In moonless wastes of planet stricken airO
O many childed mother great and greyA
O multitudinous bosom and breasts that bareO
Our fathers' generations whereat layA
The weanling peoples and the tribes that wereP
Whose new born mouths long deadA
Those ninefold nipples fedA
Dim face with deathless eyes and withered hairO
Fostress of obscure landsQ
Whose multiplying handsQ
Wove the world's web with divers races fairO
And cast it waif wise on the streamR
The waters of the centuries where thou sat'st to dreamR
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O many minded mother and visionaryS
Asia that sawest their westering waters sweepE
With all the ships and spoils of time to carryS
And all the fears and hopes of life to keepE
Thy vesture wrought of ages legendaryS
Hides usward thine impenetrable sleepE
And thy veiled head night's oldest tributaryS
We know not if it speak or smile or weepE
But where for us beganT
The first live light of manT
And first born fire of deeds to burn and leapE
The first war fair as peaceU
To shine and lighten GreeceU
And the first freedom moved upon the deepE
God's breath upon the face of timeV
Moving a present spirit seen of men sublimeV
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There where our east looks always to thy westA
Our mornings to thine evenings Greece to theeS
These lights that catch the mountains crest by crestA
Are they of stars or beacons that we seeS
Taygetus takes here the winds abreastA
And there the sun resumes ThermopylaeA
The light is Athens where those remnants restA
And Salamis the sea wall of that seaS
The grass men tread uponW
Is very MarathonW
The leaves are of that time unstricken treeS
That storm nor sun can fretA
Nor wind since she that setA
Made it her sign to men whose shield was sheS
Here as dead time his deathless thingsC
Eurotas and Cephisus keep their sleepless springsC
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O hills of Crete are these things dead O wavesX
O many mouthed streams are these springs dryF
Earth dost thou feed and hide now none but slavesX
Heaven hast thou heard of men that would not dieF
Is the land thick with only such men's gravesX
As were ashamed to look upon the skyF
Ye dead whose name outfaces and outbravesX
Death is the seed of such as you gone byF
Sea have thy ports not heardA
Some Marathonian wordA
Rise up to landward and to Godward flyF
No thunder that the skiesX
Sent not upon us riseX
With fire and earthquake and a cleaving cryF
Nay light is here and shall be lightA
Though all the face of the hour be overborne with nightA
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I set the trumpet to my lips and blowA
The night is broken northward the pale plainsX
And footless fields of sun forgotten snowA
Feel through their creviced lips and iron veinsX
Such quick breath labour and such clean blood flowA
As summer stricken spring feels in her painsX
When dying May bears June too young to knowA
The fruit that waxes from the flower that wanesX
Strange tyrannies and vastA
Tribes frost bound to their pastA
Lands that are loud all through their length with chainsX
Wastes where the wind's wings breakI
Displumed by daylong acheI
And anguish of blind snows and rack blown rainsX
And ice that seals the White Sea's lipsX
Whose monstrous weights crush flat the sides of shrieking shipsX
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Horrible sights and sounds of the unreached poleA
And shrill fierce climes of inconsolable airO
Shining below the beamless aureoleA
That hangs about the north wind's hurtling hairO
A comet lighted lamp sublime and soleA
Dawn of the dayless heaven where suns despairO
Earth skies and waters smitten into soulA
Feel the hard veil that iron centuries wearO
Rent as with hands in sunderP
Such hands as make the thunderP
And clothe with form all substance and strip bareO
Shapes shadows sounds and lightsX
Of their dead days and nightsX
Take soul of life too keen for death to bearO
Life conscience forethought will desireP
Flood men's inanimate eyes and dry drawn hearts with fireP
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Light light and light to break and melt in sunderP
All clouds and chains that in one bondage bindA
Eyes hands and spirits forged by fear and wonderP
And sleek fierce fraud with hidden knife behindA
There goes no fire from heaven before their thunderP
Nor are the links not malleable that windA
Round the snared limbs and souls that ache thereunderP
The hands are mighty were the head not blindA
Priest is the staff of kingY
And chains and clouds one thingY
And fettered flesh with devastated mindA
Open thy soul to seeX
Slave and thy feet are freeX
Thy bonds and thy beliefs are one in kindA
And of thy fears thine irons wroughtA
Hang weights upon thee fashioned out of thine own thoughtA
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O soul O God O glory of libertyX
To night and day their lightning and their lightA
With heat of heart thou kindlest the quick seaX
And the dead earth takes spirit from thy sightA
The natural body of things is warm with theeX
And the world's weakness parcel of thy mightA
Thou seest us feeble and forceless fit to beX
Slaves of the years that drive us left and rightA
Drowned under hours like wavesX
Wherethrough we row like slavesX
But if thy finger touch us these take flightA
If but one sovereign wordA
Of thy live lips be heardA
What man shall stop us and what God shall smiteA
Do thou but look in our dead eyesX
They are stars that light each other till thy sundawn riseX
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Thou art the eye of this blind body of manT
The tongue of thisX

Algernon Charles Swinburne



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