The Question Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBABCDECDFGGFGHIIJI JKKJLMNNMNOPPOPDJJDJ QPPQPRJJRJSTTSTJAAJA UVVUVNPPNPWMMWMXJJXJ YJJYJJJJJJZOOZOA2JJA 2JShall England consummate the crime | A |
That binds the murderer's hand and leaves | B |
No surety for the trust of thieves | B |
Time pleads against it truth and time | A |
And pity frowns and grieves | B |
The hoary henchman of the gang | C |
Lifts hands that never dew nor rain | D |
May cleanse from Gordon's blood again | E |
Appealing pity's tenderest pang | C |
Thrills his pure heart with pain | D |
Grand helmsman of the clamorous crew | F |
The good grey recreant quakes and weeps | G |
To think that crime no longer creeps | G |
Safe toward its end that murderers too | F |
May die when mercy sleeps | G |
While all the lives were innocent | H |
That slaughter drank and laughed with rage | I |
Bland virtue sighed A former age | I |
Taught murder souls long discontent | J |
Can aught save blood assuage | I |
You blame not Russian hands that smite | J |
By fierce and secret ways the power | K |
That leaves not life one chainless hour | K |
Have these than they less natural right | J |
To claim life's natural dower | L |
The dower that freedom brings the slave | M |
She weds is vengeance why should we | N |
Whom equal laws acclaim as free | N |
Think shame if men too blindly brave | M |
Steal murder skulk and flee | N |
At kings they strike in Russia there | O |
Men take their life in hand who slay | P |
Kings these that have not heart to lay | P |
Hand save on girls whose ravaged hair | O |
Is made the patriot's prey | P |
These whom the sight of old men slain | D |
Makes bold to bid their children die | J |
Starved if they hold not peace nor lie | J |
Claim loftier praise could others deign | D |
To stand in shame so high | J |
Could others deign to dare such deeds | Q |
As holiest Ireland hallows Nay | P |
But justice then makes plain our way | P |
Be laws burnt up like burning weeds | Q |
That vex the face of day | P |
Shall bloodmongers be held of us | R |
Blood guilty Hands reached out for gold | J |
Whereon blood rusts not yet we hold | J |
Bloodless and blameless ever thus | R |
Have good men held of old | J |
Fair Freedom fledged and imped with lies | S |
Takes flight by night where murder lurks | T |
And broods on murderous ways and works | T |
Yet seems not hideous in our eyes | S |
As Austrians or as Turks | T |
Be it ours to undo a woful past | J |
To bid the bells of concord chime | A |
To break the bonds of suffering crime | A |
Slack now that some would make more fast | J |
Such teaching comes of time | A |
So pleads the gentlest heart that lives | U |
Whose pity pitiless for all | V |
Whom darkling terror holds in thrall | V |
Toward none save miscreants yearns and gives | U |
Alms of warm tears and gall | V |
Hear England and obey for he | N |
Who claims thy trust again to day | P |
Is he who left thy sons a prey | P |
To shame whence only death sets free | N |
Hear England and obey | P |
Thy spoils he gave to deck the Dutch | W |
Thy noblest pride most pure most brave | M |
To death forlorn and sure he gave | M |
Nor now requires he overmuch | W |
Who bids thee dig thy grave | M |
Dig deep the grave of shame wherein | X |
Thy fame thy commonweal must lie | J |
Put thought of aught save terror by | J |
To strike and slay the slayer is sin | X |
And Murder must not die | J |
Bind fast the true man loose the thief | Y |
Shamed were the land the laws accursed | J |
Were guilt not innocence amerced | J |
And dark the wrong and sore the grief | Y |
Were tyrants too coerced | J |
The fiercest cowards that ever skulked | J |
The cowardliest hounds that ever lapped | J |
Blood if their horde be tracked and trapped | J |
And justice claim their lives for mulct | J |
Gnash teeth that flashed and snapped | J |
Bow down for fear then England bow | Z |
Lest worse befall thee yet and swear | O |
That nought save pity conscience care | O |
For truth and mercy moves thee now | Z |
To call foul falsehood fair | O |
So shalt thou live in shame and hear | A2 |
The lips of all men laugh thee dead | J |
The wide world's mockery round thy head | J |
Shriek like a storm wind and a bier | A2 |
Shall be thine honour's bed | J |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
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