Tiresias Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDBEE FGGFHH IJJIKL MNNMOO POOPQQ NRRNSS TEETQQ UMMMMM NNNNMM VMMVNL MAAMNN JWWJVV MNNMMM XYYXZZ MNNMA2A2 MVVMB2B2 MNNMC2D2 MPPME2E2 NTTNF2F2 G2NNG2MM NH2H2NOO GNNGMM A2NNA2TZ I2GGI2J2J2 MNNMTT H2K2K2H2GG NNNNMM E2MME2NN JH2H2JJ2J2 L2NNL2NN J2MMJ2MM MNNMNN NMMNA2A2 M2MMM2MM PNNPN2P GH2H2GO2O2 PDDPNN J2NNJ2MM E2OOE2GG TNNTPP O2ZTO2P2P2 XMMXNN NWWNMM A Q2NNQ2J2J2 GNNGZZ MMMMMM J2XXJ2NN OZZONN NNNNMM XNNXJ2J2 NMMNNN MMMMXX J2NNJ2VV NMMNNN NMMNO2O2 NWWNNN MZZMR2R2 M2NNM2NN MS2S2MR2R2 MJ2J2MT2T2 ZJ2J2ZMM J2MMJ2U2U2 NF2F2NH2H2 MOOMMM

PART I	A
	-
It is an hour before the hour of dawn	B
Set in mine hand my staff and leave me here	C
Outside the hollow house that blind men fear	D
More blind than I who live on life withdrawn	B
And feel on eyes that see not but foresee	E
The shadow of death which clothes Antigone	E
	-
Here lay her living body that here lies	F
Dead if man living know what thing is death	G
If life be all made up of blood and breath	G
And no sense be save as of ears and eyes	F
But heart there is not tongue there is not found	H
To think or sing what verge hath life or bound	H
	-
In the beginning when the powers that made	I
The young child man a little loved him seeing	J
His joy of life and fair face of his being	J
And bland and laughing with the man child played	I
As friends they saw on our divine one day	K
King Cadmus take to queen Harmonia	L
	-
The strength of soul that builds up as with hands	M
Walls spiritual and towers and towns of thought	N
Which only fate not force can bring to nought	N
Took then to wife the light of all men's lands	M
War's child and love's most sweet and wise and strong	O
Order of things and rule and guiding song	O
	-
It was long since yea even the sun that saw	P
Remembers hardly what was nor how long	O
And now the wise heart of the worldly song	O
Is perished and the holy hand of law	P
Can set no tune on time nor help again	Q
The power of thought to build up life for men	Q
	-
Yea surely are they now transformed or dead	N
And sleep below this world where no sun warms	R
Or move about it now in formless forms	R
Incognizable and all their lordship fled	N
And where they stood up singing crawl and hiss	S
With fangs that kill behind their lips that kiss	S
	-
Yet though her marriage garment seeming fair	T
Was dyed in sin and woven of jealousy	E
To turn their seed to poison time shall see	E
The gods reissue from them and repair	T
Their broken stamp of godhead and again	Q
Thought and wise love sing words of law to men	Q
	-
I Tiresias the prophet seeing in Thebes	U
Much evil and the misery of men's hands	M
Who sow with fruitless wheat the stones and sands	M
With fruitful thorns the fallows and warm glebes	M
Bade their hands hold lest worse hap came to pass	M
But which of you had heed of Tiresias	M
	-
I am as Time's self in mine own wearied mind	N
Whom the strong heavy footed years have led	N
From night to night and dead men unto dead	N
And from the blind hope to the memory blind	N
For each man's life is woven as Time's life is	M
Of blind young hopes and old blind memories	M
	-
I am a soul outside of death and birth	V
I see before me and afterward I see	M
O child O corpse the live dead face of thee	M
Whose life and death are one thing upon earth	V
Where day kills night and night again kills day	N
And dies but where is that Harmonia	L
	-
O all beholden light not seen of me	M
Air and warm winds that under the sun's eye	A
Stretch your strong wings at morning and thou sky	A
Whose hollow circle engirdling earth and sea	M
All night the set stars limit and all day	N
The moving sun remeasures ye I say	N
	-
Ye heights of hills and thou Dircean spring	J
Inviolable and ye towers that saw cast down	W
Seven kings keen sighted toward your seven faced town	W
And quenched the red seed of one sightless king	J
And thou for death less dreadful than for birth	V
Whose wild leaves hide the horror of the earth	V
	-
O mountain whereon gods made chase of kings	M
Cith ron thou that sawest on Pentheus dead	N
Fangs of a mother fasten and wax red	N
And satiate with a son thy swollen springs	M
And heardst her cry fright all thine eyries' nests	M
Who gave death suck at sanguine suckling breasts	M
	-
Yea and a grief more grievous without name	X
A curse too grievous for the name of grief	Y
Thou sawest and heardst the rumour scare belief	Y
Even unto death and madness when the flame	X
Was lit whose ashes dropped about the pyre	Z
That of two brethren made one sundering fire	Z
	-
O bitter nurse that on thine hard bare knees	M
Rear'dst for his fate the bloody footed child	N
Whose hands should be more bloodily defiled	N
And the old blind feet walk wearier ways than these	M
Whose seed brought forth in darkness unto doom	A2
Should break as fire out of his mother's womb	A2
	-
I bear you witness as ye bear to me	M
Time day night sun stars life death air sea earth	V
And ye that round the human house of birth	V
Watch with veiled heads and weaponed hands and see	M
Good things and evil strengthless yet and dumb	B2
Sit in the clouds with cloudlike hours to come	B2
	-
Ye forces without form and viewless powers	M
That have the keys of all our years in hold	N
That prophesy too late with tongues of gold	N
In a strange speech whose words are perished hours	M
I witness to you what good things ye give	C2
As ye to me what evil while I live	D2
	-
What should I do to blame you what to praise	M
For floral hours and hours funereal	P
What should I do to curse or bless at all	P
For winter woven or summer coloured days	M
Curse he that will and bless you whoso can	E2
I have no common part in you with man	E2
	-
I hear a springing water whose quick sound	N
Makes softer the soft sunless patient air	T
And the wind's hand is laid on my thin hair	T
Light as a lover's and the grasses round	N
Have odours in them of green bloom and rain	F2
Sweet as the kiss wherewith sleep kisses pain	F2
	-
I hear the low sound of the spring of time	G2
Still beating as the low live throb of blood	N
And where its waters gather head and flood	N
I hear change moving on them and the chime	G2
Across them of reverberate wings of hours	M
Sounding and feel the future air of flowers	M
	-
The wind of change is soft as snow and sweet	N
The sense thereof as roses in the sun	H2
The faint wind springing with the springs that run	H2
The dim sweet smell of flowering hopes and heat	N
Of unbeholden sunrise yet how long	O
I know not till the morning put forth song	O
	-
I prophesy of life who live with death	G
Of joy being sad of sunlight who am blind	N
Of man whose ways are alien from mankind	N
And his lips are not parted with man's breath	G
I am a word out of the speechless years	M
The tongue of time that no man sleeps who hears	M
	-
I stand a shadow across the door of doom	A2
Athwart the lintel of death's house and wait	N
Nor quick nor dead nor flexible by fate	N
Nor quite of earth nor wholly of the tomb	A2
A voice a vision light as fire or air	T
Driven between days that shall be and that were	Z
	-
I prophesy with feet upon a grave	I2
Of death cast out and life devouring death	G
As flame doth wood and stubble with a breath	G
Of freedom though all manhood were one slave	I2
Of truth though all the world were liar of love	J2
That time nor hate can raze the witness of	J2
	-
Life that was given for love's sake and his law's	M
Their powers have no more power on they divide	N
Spoils wrung from lust or wrath of man or pride	N
And keen oblivion without pity or pause	M
Sets them on fire and scatters them on air	T
Like ashes shaken from a suppliant's hair	T
	-
But life they lay no hand on life once given	H2
No force of theirs hath competence to take	K2
Life that was given for some divine thing's sake	K2
To mix the bitterness of earth with heaven	H2
Light with man's night and music with his breath	G
Dies not but makes its living food of death	G
	-
I have seen this who live where men are not	N
In the high starless air of fruitful night	N
On that serenest and obscurest height	N
Where dead and unborn things are one in thought	N
And whence the live unconquerable springs	M
Feed full of force the torrents of new things	M
	-
I have seen this who saw long since being man	E2
As now I know not if indeed I be	M
The fair bare body of Wisdom good to see	M
And evil whence my light and night began	E2
Light on the goal and darkness on the way	N
Light all through night and darkness all through day	N
	-
Mother that by that Pegasean spring	J
Didst fold round in thine arms thy blinded son	H2
Weeping O holiest what thing hast thou done	H2
What to my child woe's me that see the thing	J
Is this thy love to me ward and hereof	J2
Must I take sample how the gods can love	J2
	-
O child thou hast seen indeed poor child of mine	L2
The breasts and flanks of Pallas bare in sight	N
But never shalt see more the dear sun's light	N
O Helicon how great a pay is thine	L2
For some poor antelopes and wild deer dead	N
My child's eyes hast thou taken in their stead	N
	-
Mother thou knewest not what she had to give	J2
Thy goddess though then angered for mine eyes	M
Fame and foreknowledge and to be most wise	M
And centuries of high thoughted life to live	J2
And in mine hand this guiding staff to be	M
As eyesight to the feet of men that see	M
	-
Perchance I shall not die at all nor pass	M
The general door and lintel of men dead	N
Yet even the very tongue of wisdom said	N
What grace should come with death to Tiresias	M
What special honour that God's hand accord	N
Who gathers all men's nations as their lord	N
	-
And sometimes when the secret eye of thought	N
Is changed with obscuration and the sense	M
Aches with long pain of hollow prescience	M
And fiery foresight with foresuffering bought	N
Seems even to infect my spirit and consume	A2
Hunger and thirst come on me for the tomb	A2
	-
I could be fain to drink my death and sleep	M2
And no more wrapped about with bitter dreams	M
Talk with the stars and with the winds and streams	M
And with the inevitable years and weep	M2
For how should he who communes with the years	M
Be sometime not a living spring of tears	M
	-
O child that guided of thine only will	P
Didst set thy maiden foot against the gate	N
To strike it open ere thine hour of fate	N
Antigone men say not thou didst ill	P
For love's sake and the reverence of his awe	N2
Divinely dying slain by mortal law	P
	-
For love is awful as immortal death	G
And through thee surely hath thy brother won	H2
Rest out of sight of our world weary sun	H2
And in the dead land where ye ghosts draw breath	G
A royal place and honour so wast thou	O2
Happy though earth have hold of thee too now	O2
	-
So hast thou life and name inviolable	P
And joy it may be sacred and severe	D
Joy secret souled beyond all hope or fear	D
A monumental joy wherein to dwell	P
Secluse and silent a selected state	N
Serene possession of thy proper fate	N
	-
Thou art not dead as these are dead who live	J2
Full of blind years a sorrow shaken kind	N
Nor as these are am I the prophet blind	N
They have not life that have not heart to give	J2
Life nor have eyesight who lack heart to see	M
When to be not is better than to be	M
	-
O ye whom time but bears with for a span	E2
How long will ye be blind and dead how long	O
Make your own souls part of your own soul's wrong	O
Son of the word of the most high gods man	E2
Why wilt thou make thine hour of light and breath	G
Emptier of all but shame than very death	G
	-
Fool wilt thou live for ever though thou care	T
With all thine heart for life to keep it fast	N
Shall not thine hand forego it at the last	N
Lo thy sure hour shall take thee by the hair	T
Sleeping or when thou knowest not or wouldst fly	P
And as men died much mightier shalt thou die	P
	-
Yea they are dead men much more worth than thou	O2
The savour of heroic lives that were	Z
Is it not mixed into thy common air	T
The sense of them is shed about thee now	O2
Feel not thy brows a wind blowing from far	P2
Aches not thy forehead with a future star	P2
	-
The light that thou may'st make out of thy name	X
Is in the wind of this same hour that drives	M
Blown within reach but once of all men's lives	M
And he that puts forth hand upon the flame	X
Shall have it for a garland on his head	N
To sign him for a king among the dead	N
	-
But these men that the lessening years behold	N
Who sit the most part without flame or crown	W
And brawl and sleep and wear their life days down	W
With joys and griefs ignobler than of old	N
And care not if the better day shall be	M
Are these or art thou dead Antigone	M
	-
	-
	-
PART II	A
	-
As when one wakes out of a waning dream	Q2
And sees with instant eyes the naked thought	N
Whereof the vision as a web was wrought	N
I saw beneath a heaven of cloud and gleam	Q2
Ere yet the heart of the young sun waxed brave	J2
One like a prophet standing by a grave	J2
	-
In the hoar heaven was hardly beam or breath	G
And all the coloured hills and fields were grey	N
And the wind wandered seeking for the day	N
And wailed as though he had found her done to death	G
And this grey hour had built to bury her	Z
The hollow twilight for a sepulchre	Z
	-
But in my soul I saw as in a glass	M
A pale and living body full of grace	M
There lying and over it the prophet's face	M
Fixed and the face was not of Tiresias	M
For such a starry fire was in his eyes	M
As though their light it was that made the skies	M
	-
Such eyes should God's have been when very love	J2
Looked forth of them and set the sun aflame	X
And such his lips that called the light by name	X
And bade the morning forth at sound thereof	J2
His face was sad and masterful as fate	N
And like a star's his look compassionate	N
	-
Like a star's gazed on of sad eyes so long	O
It seems to yearn with pity and all its fire	Z
As a man's heart to tremble with desire	Z
And heave as though the light would bring forth song	O
Yet from his face flashed lightning on the land	N
And like the thunder bearer's was his hand	N
	-
The steepness of strange stairs had tired his feet	N
And his lips yet seemed sick of that salt bread	N
Wherewith the lips of banishment are fed	N
But nothing was there in the world so sweet	N
As the most bitter love like God's own grace	M
Wherewith he gazed on that fair buried face	M
	-
Grief and glad pride and passion and sharp shame	X
Wrath and remembrance faith and hope and hate	N
And pitiless pity of days degenerate	N
Were in his eyes as an incorporate flame	X
That burned about her and the heart thereof	J2
And central flower was very fire of love	J2
	-
But all about her grave wherein she slept	N
Were noises of the wild wind footed years	M
Whose footprints flying were full of blood and tears	M
Shrieks as of Maenads on their hills that leapt	N
And yelled as beasts of ravin and their meat	N
Was the rent flesh of their own sons to eat	N
	-
And fiery shadows passing with strange cries	M
And Sphinx like shapes about the ruined lands	M
And the red reek of parricidal hands	M
And intermixture of incestuous eyes	M
And light as of that self divided flame	X
Which made an end of the Cadmean name	X
	-
And I beheld again and lo the grave	J2
And the bright body laid therein as dead	N
And the same shadow across another head	N
That bowed down silent on that sleeping slave	J2
Who was the lady of empire from her birth	V
And light of all the kingdoms of the earth	V
	-
Within the compass of the watcher's hand	N
All strengths of other men and divers powers	M
Were held at ease and gathered up as flowers	M
His heart was as the heart of his whole land	N
And at his feet as natural servants lay	N
Twilight and dawn and night and labouring day	N
	-
He was most awful of the sons of God	N
Even now men seeing seemed at his lips to see	M
The trumpet of the judgment that should be	M
And in his right hand terror for a rod	N
And in the breath that made the mountains bow	O2
The horned fire of Moses on his brow	O2
	-
The strong wind of the coming of the Lord	N
Had blown as flame upon him and brought down	W
On his bare head from heaven fire for a crown	W
And fire was girt upon him as a sword	N
To smite and lighten and on what ways he trod	N
There fell from him the shadow of a God	N
	-
Pale with the whole world's judgment in his eyes	M
He stood and saw the grief and shame endure	Z
That he though highest of angels might not cure	Z
And the same sins done under the same skies	M
And the same slaves to the same tyrants thrown	R2
And fain he would have slept and fain been stone	R2
	-
But with unslumbering eyes he watched the sleep	M2
That sealed her sense whose eyes were suns of old	N
And the night shut and opened and behold	N
The same grave where those prophets came to weep	M2
But she that lay therein had moved and stirred	N
And where those twain had watched her stood a third	N
	-
The tripled rhyme that closed in Paradise	M
With Love's name sealing up its starry speech	S2
The tripled might of hand that found in reach	S2
All crowns beheld far off of all men's eyes	M
Song colour carven wonders of live stone	R2
These were not but the very soul alone	R2
	-
The living spirit the good gift of grace	M
The faith which takes of its own blood to give	J2
That the dead veins of buried hope may live	J2
Came on her sleeping face to naked face	M
And from a soul more sweet than all the south	T2
Breathed love upon her sealed and breathless mouth	T2
	-
Between her lips the breath was blown as fire	Z
And through her flushed veins leapt the liquid life	J2
And with sore passion and ambiguous strife	J2
The new birth rent her and the new desire	Z
The will to live the competence to be	M
The sense to hearken and the soul to see	M
	-
And the third prophet standing by her grave	J2
Stretched forth his hand and touched her and her eyes	M
Opened as sudden suns in heaven might rise	M
And her soul caught from his the faith to save	J2
Faith above creeds faith beyond records born	U2
Of the pure naked fruitful awful morn	U2
	-
For in the daybreak now that night was dead	N
The light the shadow the delight the pain	F2
The purpose and the passion of those twain	F2
Seemed gathered on that third prophetic head	N
And all their crowns were as one crown and one	H2
His face with her face in the living sun	H2
	-
For even with that communion of their eyes	M
His whole soul passed into her and made her strong	O
And all the sounds and shows of shame and wrong	O
The hand that slays the lip that mocks and lies	M
Temples and thrones that yet men seem to see	M
Are these dead or art thou dead Italy	M

Algernon Charles Swinburne

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