The Statue Of Victor Hugo Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCBCBC DEDEDEDE FGFGFGFG GGGGGGGG HIHIHIHI GJGJGJGJ HIHIHIHH GFGFGFGF BKBKBKBK LMLMLMLM MGMGMGMG LFLFLFLF LMLMLMLM MNMNMNMN HOHOHOHO GHGHGHGH FGFGFGFG NGNGNGNG MHMH MHMH MMMMMMMM FGFGFGFG GNGNGNGN MGMGMGMG GPGPGPGP HQHQHQHQ| I | A |
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| Since in Athens God stood plain for adoration | B |
| Since the sun beheld his likeness reared in stone | C |
| Since the bronze or gold of human consecration | B |
| Gave to Greece her guardian's form and feature shown | C |
| Never hand of sculptor never heart of nation | B |
| Found so glorious aim in all these ages flown | C |
| As is theirs who rear for all time's acclamation | B |
| Here the likeness of our mightiest and their own | C |
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| Theirs and ours and all men's living who behold him | D |
| Crowned with garlands multiform and manifold | E |
| Praise and thanksgiving of all mankind enfold him | D |
| Who for all men casts abroad his gifts of gold | E |
| With the gods of song have all men's tongues enrolled him | D |
| With the helpful gods have all men's hearts enrolled | E |
| Ours he is who love him ours whose hearts' hearts hold him | D |
| Fast as his the trust that hearts like his may hold | E |
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| He the heart most high the spirit on earth most blameless | F |
| Takes in charge all spirits holds all hearts in trust | G |
| As the sea wind's on the sea his ways are tameless | F |
| As the laws that steer the world his works are just | G |
| All most noble feel him nobler all most shameless | F |
| Feel his wrath and scorn make pale their pride and lust | G |
| All most poor and lowliest all whose wrongs were nameless | F |
| Feel his word of comfort raise them from the dust | G |
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| Pride of place and lust of empire bloody fruited | G |
| Knew the blasting of his breath on leaf and fruit | G |
| Now the hand that smote the death tree now disrooted | G |
| Plants the refuge tree that has man's hope for root | G |
| Ah but we by whom his darkness was saluted | G |
| How shall now all we that see his day salute | G |
| How should love not seem by love's own speech confuted | G |
| Song before the sovereign singer not be mute | G |
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| With what worship by what blessing in what measure | H |
| May we sing of him salute him or adore | I |
| With what hymn for praise what thanksgiving for pleasure | H |
| Who had given us more than heaven and gives us more | I |
| Heaven's whole treasury filled up full with night's whole treasure | H |
| Holds not so divine or deep a starry store | I |
| As the soul supreme that deals forth worlds at leisure | H |
| Clothed with light and darkness dense with flower and ore | I |
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| Song had touched the bourn fresh verses overflow it | G |
| Loud and radiant waves on waves on waves that throng | J |
| Still the tide grows and the sea mark still below it | G |
| Sinks and shifts and rises changed and swept along | J |
| Rose it like a rock the waters overthrow it | G |
| And another stands beyond them sheer and strong | J |
| Goal by goal pays down its prize and yields its poet | G |
| Tribute claimed of triumph palm achieved of song | J |
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| Since his hand that holds the keys of fear and wonder | H |
| Opened on the high priest's dreaming eyes a door | I |
| Whence the lights of heaven and hell above and under | H |
| Shone and smote the face that men bow down before | I |
| Thrice again one singer's note had cloven in sunder | H |
| Night who blows again not one blast now but four | I |
| And the fourfold heaven is kindled with his thunder | H |
| And the stars about his forehead are fourscore | H |
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| From the deep soul's depths where alway love abounded | G |
| First had risen a song with healing on its wings | F |
| Whence the dews of mercy raining balms unbounded | G |
| Shed their last compassion even on sceptred things | F |
| Even on heads that like a curse the crown surrounded | G |
| Fell his crowning pity soft as cleansing springs | F |
| And the sweet last note his wrath relenting sounded | G |
| Bade men's hearts be melted not for slaves but kings | F |
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| Next that faith might strengthen fear and love embolden | B |
| On the creeds of priests a scourge of sunbeams fell | K |
| And its flash made bare the deeps of heaven beholden | B |
| Not of men that cry Lord Lord from church or cell | K |
| Hope as young as dawn from night obscure and olden | B |
| Rose again such power abides in truth's one spell | K |
| Night if dawn it be that touches her grows golden | B |
| Tears if such as angels weep extinguish hell | K |
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| Through the blind loud mills of barren blear eyed learning | L |
| Where in dust and darkness children's foreheads bow | M |
| While men's labour vain as wind or water turning | L |
| Wheels and sails of dreams makes life a leafless bough | M |
| Fell the light of scorn and pity touched with yearning | L |
| Next from words that shone as heaven's own kindling brow | M |
| Stars were these as watch fires on the world's waste burning | L |
| Stars that fade not in the fourfold sunrise now | M |
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| Now the voice that faints not till all wrongs be wroken | M |
| Sounds as might the sun's song from the morning's breast | G |
| All the seals of silence sealed of night are broken | M |
| All the winds that bear the fourfold word are blest | G |
| All the keen fierce east flames forth one fiery token | M |
| All the north is loud with life that knows not rest | G |
| All the south with song as though the stars had spoken | M |
| All the judgment fire of sunset scathes the west | G |
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| Sound of p an roll of chanted panegyric | L |
| Though by Pindar's mouth song's trumpet spake forth praise | F |
| March of warrior songs in Pythian mood or Pyrrhic | L |
| Though the blast were blown by lips of ancient days | F |
| Ring not clearer than the clarion of satiric | L |
| Song whose breath sweeps bare the plague infected ways | F |
| Till the world be pure as heaven is for the lyric | L |
| Sun to rise up clothed with radiant sounds as rays | F |
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| Clear across the cloud rack fluctuant and erratic | L |
| As the strong star smiles that lets no mourner mourn | M |
| Hymned alike from lips of Lesbian choirs or Attic | L |
| Once at evensong and morning newly born | M |
| Clear and sure above the changes of dramatic | L |
| Tide and current soft with love and keen with scorn | M |
| Smiles the strong sweet soul of maidenhood ecstatic | L |
| And inviolate as the red glad mouth of morn | M |
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| Pure and passionate as dawn whose apparition | M |
| Thrills with fire from heaven the wheels of hours that whirl | N |
| Rose and passed her radiance in serene transition | M |
| From his eyes who sought a grain and found a pearl | N |
| But the food by cunning hope for vain fruition | M |
| Lightly stolen away from keeping of a churl | N |
| Left the bitterness of death and hope's perdition | M |
| On the lip that scorn was wont for shame to curl | N |
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| Over waves that darken round the wave worn rover | H |
| Rang his clarion higher than winds cried round the ship | O |
| Rose a pageant of set suns and storms blown over | H |
| Hands that held life's guerdons fast or let them slip | O |
| But no tongue may tell no thanksgiving discover | H |
| Half the heaven of blessing soft with clouds that drip | O |
| Keen with beams that kindle dear as love to lover | H |
| Opening by the spell's strength on his lyric lip | O |
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| By that spell the soul transfigured and dilated | G |
| Puts forth wings that widen breathes a brightening air | H |
| Feeds on light and drinks of music whence elated | G |
| All her sense grows godlike seeing all depths made bare | H |
| All the mists wherein before she sat belated | G |
| Shrink till now the sunlight knows not if they were | H |
| All this earth transformed is Eden recreated | G |
| With the breath of heaven remurmuring in her hair | H |
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| Sweeter far than aught of sweet that April nurses | F |
| Deep in dew dropt woodland folded fast and furled | G |
| Breathes the fragrant song whose burning dawn disperses | F |
| Darkness like the surge of armies backward hurled | G |
| Even as though the touch of spring's own hand that pierces | F |
| Earth with life's delight had hidden in the impearled | G |
| Golden bells and buds and petals of his verses | F |
| All the breath of all the flowers in all the world | G |
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| But the soul therein the light that our souls follow | N |
| Fires and fills the song with more of prophet's pride | G |
| More of life than all the gulfs of death may swallow | N |
| More of flame than all the might of night may hide | G |
| Though the whole dark age were loud and void and hollow | N |
| Strength of trust were here and help for all souls tried | G |
| And a token from the flight of that strange swallow | N |
| Whose migration still is toward the wintry side | G |
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| Never came such token for divine solution | M |
| From the oraculous live darkness whence of yore | H |
| Ancient faith sought word of help and retribution | M |
| Truth to lighten doubt a sign to go before | H |
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| Never so baptismal waters of ablution | M |
| Bathed the brows of exile on so stern a shore | H |
| Where the lightnings of the sea of revolution | M |
| Flashed across them ere its thunders yet might roar | H |
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| By the lightning's light of present revelation | M |
| Shown with epic thunder as from skies that frown | M |
| Clothed in darkness as of darkling expiation | M |
| Rose a vision of dead stars and suns gone down | M |
| Whence of old fierce fire devoured the star struck nation | M |
| Till its wrath and woe lit red the raging town | M |
| Now made glorious with his statue's crowning station | M |
| Where may never gleam again a viler crown | M |
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| King with time for throne and all the years for pages | F |
| He shall reign though all thrones else be over hurled | G |
| Served of souls that have his living words for wages | F |
| Crowned of heaven each dawn that leaves his brows impearled | G |
| Girt about with robes unrent of storm that rages | F |
| Robes not wrought with hands from no loom's weft unfurled | G |
| All the praise of all earth's tongues in all earth's ages | F |
| All the love of all men's hearts in all the world | G |
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| Yet what hand shall carve the soul or cast the spirit | G |
| Mould the face of fame bid glory's feature glow | N |
| Who bequeath for eyes of ages hence to inherit | G |
| Him the Master whom love knows not if it know | N |
| Scarcely perfect praise of men man's work might merit | G |
| Scarcely bid such aim to perfect stature grow | N |
| Were his hand the hand of Phidias who shall rear it | G |
| And his soul the very soul of Angelo | N |
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| Michael awful angel of the world's last session | M |
| Once on earth like him with fire of suffering tried | G |
| Thine it were if man's it were without transgression | M |
| Thine alone to take this toil upon thy pride | G |
| Thine whose heart was great against the world's oppression | M |
| Even as his whose word is lamp and staff and guide | G |
| Advocate for man untired of intercession | M |
| Pleads his voice for slaves whose lords his voice defied | G |
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| Earth with all the kings and thralls on earth below it | G |
| Heaven alone with all the worlds in heaven above | P |
| Let his likeness rise for suns and stars to know it | G |
| High for men to worship plain for men to love | P |
| Brow that braved the tides which fain would overflow it | G |
| Lip that gave the challenge hand that flung the glove | P |
| Comforter and prophet Paraclete and poet | G |
| Soul whose emblems are an eagle and a dove | P |
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| Sun that hast not seen a loftier head wax hoary | H |
| Earth which hast not shown the sun a nobler birth | Q |
| Time that hast not on thy scroll denied and gory | H |
| One man's name writ brighter in its whole wide girth | Q |
| Witness till the final years fulfil their story | H |
| Till the stars break off the music of their mirth | Q |
| What among the sons of men was this man's glory | H |
| What the vesture of his soul revealed on earth | Q |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
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