Tristram Of Lyonesse - V - Iseult At Tintagel Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCBBBBDDEEFFGGHH IIJJKKDDLLBBMNO OPPQQRRAASSTTUUVVWXD DYZA2A2OOB2B2A AC2C2D2D2E2E2AAF2G2B BH2I2J2J2FFAABBK2K2X XBBBBB K2K2AAIIL2L2AABBQQM2 M2G2 F2A AA2A2N2N2O2O2AADDA2A 2P2P2Q2Q2BBK2K2AABBP PO2O2AAK2K2BBSSAA O2J2 R2R2A AF2 G2S2S2A2A2EDAAT2T2U2 V2CCBBAAW2W2X2X2Y2Y2 Z2Z2QQBBA AF2 G2A3A3B3B3C3C3BBD3D3 BBLLIIG2 F2A AE2E2T2T2Z2Z2E3F3Q2Q 2G3H3I3I3Y2Y2IIMNT2T 2BBCCT2T2G2 F2A AJ3J3BBBBIIAABBY2Y2B BK3K3G2 F2A AL3M3BBTTCCA2A2A2N3N 3O3O3K2K2AAALLA2A2YY P3P3D3D3WXA2A2G2 F2A AQ3Q3D3D3O2O2QQBBAA R3R3E3E3Q3Q3BBAAC2C2 BB EEAA| But that same night in Cornwall oversea | A |
| Couched at Queen Iseult's hand against her knee | A |
| With keen kind eyes that read her whole heart's pain | B |
| Fast at wide watch lay Tristram's hound Hodain | B |
| The goodliest and the mightiest born on earth | C |
| That many a forest day of fiery mirth | C |
| Had plied his craft before them and the queen | B |
| Cherished him even for those dim years between | B |
| More than of old in those bright months far flown | B |
| When ere a blast of Tristram's horn was blown | B |
| Each morning as the woods rekindled ere | D |
| Day gat full empire of the glimmering air | D |
| Delight of dawn would quicken him and fire | E |
| Spring and pant in his breath with bright desire | E |
| To be among the dewy ways on quest | F |
| But now perforce at restless hearted rest | F |
| He chafed through days more barren than the sand | G |
| Soothed hardly but soothed only with her hand | G |
| Though fain to fawn thereon and follow still | H |
| With all his heart and all his loving will | H |
| Desiring one divided from his sight | I |
| For whose lost sake dawn was as dawn of night | I |
| And noon as night's noon in his eyes was dark | J |
| But in the halls far under sat King Mark | J |
| Feasting and full of cheer with heart uplift | K |
| As on the night that harper gat his gift | K |
| And music revelled on the fitful air | D |
| And songs came floated up the festal stair | D |
| And muffled roar of wassail where the king | L |
| Took heart from wine cups and the quiring string | L |
| Till all his cold thin veins rejoiced and ran | B |
| Strong as with lifeblood of a kinglier man | B |
| But the queen shut from sound her wearied ears | M |
| Shut her sad eyes from sense of aught save tears | N |
| And wrung her hair with soft fierce hands and prayed | O |
| - | |
| O God God born of woman of a maid | O |
| Christ once in flesh of thine own fashion clad | P |
| O very love so glad in heaven and sad | P |
| On earth for earth's sake alway since thou art | Q |
| Pure only I only impure of spirit and heart | Q |
| Since thou for sin's sake and the bitter doom | R |
| Didst as a veil put on a virgin's womb | R |
| I that am none and cannot hear or see | A |
| Or shadow or likeness or a sound of thee | A |
| Far off albeit with man's own speech and face | S |
| Thou shine yet and thou speak yet showing forth grace | S |
| Ah me grace only shed on souls that are | T |
| Lit and led forth of shadow by thy star | T |
| Alas to these men only grace to these | U |
| Lord whom thy love draws Godward to thy knees | U |
| I can I draw thee me ward can I seek | V |
| Who love thee not to love me seeing how weak | V |
| Lord all this little love I bear thee is | W |
| And how much is my strong love more than this | X |
| My love that I love man with that I bear | D |
| Him sinning through me sinning wilt thou care | D |
| God for this love if love be any alas | Y |
| In me to give thee though long since there was | Z |
| How long when I too Lord was clean even I | A2 |
| That now am unclean till the day I die | A2 |
| Haply by burning harlot fashion made | O |
| A horror in all hearts of wife and maid | O |
| Hateful not knowing if ever in these mine eyes | B2 |
| Shone any light of thine in any wise | B2 |
| Or this were love at all that I bore thee | A |
| - | |
| And the night spake and thundered on the sea | A |
| Ravening aloud for ruin of lives and all | C2 |
| The bastions of the main cliff's northward wall | C2 |
| Rang response out from all their deepening length | D2 |
| As the east wind girded up his godlike strength | D2 |
| And hurled in hard against that high towered hold | E2 |
| The fleeces of the flock that knows no fold | E2 |
| The rent white shreds of shattering storm but she | A |
| Heard not nor heeded wind or storming sea | A |
| Knew not if night were mild or mad with wind | F2 |
| Yea though deep lips and tender hair be thinned | G2 |
| Though cheek wither brow fade and bosom wane | B |
| Shall I change also from this heart again | B |
| To maidenhood of heart and holiness | H2 |
| Shall I more love thee Lord or love him less | I2 |
| Ah miserable though spirit and heart be rent | J2 |
| Shall I repent Lord God shall I repent | J2 |
| Nay though thou slay me for herein I am blest | F |
| That as I loved him yet I love him best | F |
| More than mine own soul or thy love or thee | A |
| Though thy love save and my love save not me | A |
| Blest am I beyond women even herein | B |
| That beyond all born women is my sin | B |
| And perfect my transgression that above | K2 |
| All offerings of all others is my love | K2 |
| Who have chosen it only and put away for this | X |
| Thee and my soul's hope Saviour of the kiss | X |
| Wherewith thy lips make welcome all thine own | B |
| When in them life and death are overthrown | B |
| The sinless lips that seal the death of sin | B |
| The kiss wherewith their dumb lips touched begin | B |
| Singing in heaven | B |
| - | |
| Where we shall never love | K2 |
| Never stand up nor sing for God above | K2 |
| Knows us how too much more than God to me | A |
| Thy sweet love is my poor love is to thee | A |
| Dear dost thou see now dost thou hear to night | I |
| Sleeping my waste wild speech my face worn white | I |
| Speech once heard soft by thee face once kissed red | L2 |
| In such a dream as when men see their dead | L2 |
| And know not if they know if dead these be | A |
| Ah love are thy days my days and to thee | A |
| Are all nights like as my nights does the sun | B |
| Grieve thee art thou soul sick till day be done | B |
| And weary till day rises is thine heart | Q |
| Full of dead things as mine is Nay thou art | Q |
| Man with man's strength and praise and pride of life | M2 |
| No bondwoman no queen no loveless wife | M2 |
| That would be shamed albeit she had not sinned | G2 |
| - | |
| And swordlike was the sound of the iron wind | F2 |
| And as a breaking battle was the sea | A |
| - | |
| Nay Lord I pray thee let him love not me | A |
| Love me not any more nor like me die | A2 |
| And be no more than such a thing as I | A2 |
| Turn his heart from me lest my love too lose | N2 |
| Thee as I lose thee and his fair soul refuse | N2 |
| For my sake thy fair heaven and as I fell | O2 |
| Fall and be mixed with my soul and with hell | O2 |
| Let me die rather and only let me be | A |
| Hated of him so he be loved of thee | A |
| Lord for I would not have him with me there | D |
| Out of thy light and love in the unlit air | D |
| Out of thy sight in the unseen hell where I | A2 |
| Go gladly going alone so thou on high | A2 |
| Lift up his soul and love him Ah Lord Lord | P2 |
| Shalt thou love as I love him she that poured | P2 |
| From the alabaster broken at thy feet | Q2 |
| An ointment very precious not so sweet | Q2 |
| As that poured likewise forth before thee then | B |
| From the rehallowed heart of Magdalen | B |
| From a heart broken yearning like the dove | K2 |
| An ointment very precious which is love | K2 |
| Couldst thou being holy and God and sinful she | A |
| Love her indeed as surely she loved thee | A |
| Nay but if not then as we sinners can | B |
| Let us love still in the old sad wise of man | B |
| For with less love than my love having had | P |
| Mine though God love him he shall not be glad | P |
| And with such love as my love I wot well | O2 |
| He shall not lie disconsolate in hell | O2 |
| Sad only as souls for utter love's sake be | A |
| Here and a little sad perchance for me | A |
| Me happy me more glad than God above | K2 |
| In the utmost hell whose fires consume not love | K2 |
| For in the waste ways emptied of the sun | B |
| He would say 'Dear thy place is void and one | B |
| Weeps among angels for thee with his face | S |
| Veiled saying O sister how thy chosen place | S |
| Stands desolate that God made fair for thee | A |
| Is heaven not sweeter and we thy brethren we | A |
| Fairer than love on earth and life in hell ' | - |
| And I with me were all things then not well | O2 |
| Should I not answer 'O love be well content | J2 |
| Look on me and behold if I repent ' | - |
| This were more to me than an angel's wings | R2 |
| Yea many men pray God for many things | R2 |
| But I pray that this only thing may be | A |
| - | |
| And as a full field charging was the sea | A |
| And as the cry of slain men was the wind | F2 |
| - | |
| Yea since I surely loved him and he sinned | G2 |
| Surely though not as my sin his be black | S2 |
| God give him to me God God give him back | S2 |
| For now how should we live in twain or die | A2 |
| I am he indeed thou knowest and he is I | A2 |
| Not man and woman several as we were | E |
| But one thing with one life and death to bear | D |
| How should one love his own soul overmuch | A |
| And time is long since last I felt the touch | A |
| The sweet touch of my lover hand and breath | T2 |
| In such delight as puts delight to death | T2 |
| Burn my soul through till spirit and soul and sense | U2 |
| In the sharp grasp of the hour with violence | V2 |
| Died and again through pangs of violent birth | C |
| Lived and laughed out with refluent might of mirth | C |
| Laughed each on other and shuddered into one | B |
| As a cloud shuddering dies into the sun | B |
| Ah sense is that or spirit soul or flesh | A |
| That only love lulls or awakes afresh | A |
| Ah sweet is that or bitter evil or good | W2 |
| That very love allays not as he would | W2 |
| Nay truth is this or vanity that gives | X2 |
| No love assurance when love dies or lives | X2 |
| This that my spirit is wrung withal and yet | Y2 |
| No surelier knows if haply thine forget | Y2 |
| Thou that my spirit is wrung for nor can say | Z2 |
| Love is not in thee dead as yesterday | Z2 |
| Dost thou feel thou this heartbeat whence my heart | Q |
| Would send thee word what life is mine apart | Q |
| And know by keen response what life is thine | B |
| Dost thou not hear one cry of all of mine | B |
| O Tristram's heart have I no part in thee | A |
| - | |
| And all her soul was as the breaking sea | A |
| And all her heart anhungered as the wind | F2 |
| - | |
| Dost thou repent thee of the sin we sinned | G2 |
| Dost thou repent thee of the days and nights | A3 |
| That kindled and that quenched for us their lights | A3 |
| The months that feasted us with all their hours | B3 |
| The ways that breathed of us in all their flowers | B3 |
| The dells that sang of us with all their doves | C3 |
| Dost thou repent thee of the wildwood loves | C3 |
| Is thine heart changed and hallowed art thou grown | B |
| God's and not mine Yet though my heart make moan | B |
| Fain would my soul give thanks for thine if thou | D3 |
| Be saved yea fain praise God and knows not how | D3 |
| How should it know thanksgiving nay or learn | B |
| Aught of the love wherewith thine own should burn | B |
| God's that should cast out as an evil thing | L |
| Mine yea what hand of prayer have I to cling | L |
| What heart to prophesy what spirit of sight | I |
| To strain insensual eyes toward increate light | I |
| Who look but back on life wherein I sinned | G2 |
| - | |
| And all their past came wailing in the wind | F2 |
| And all their future thundered in the sea | A |
| - | |
| But if my soul might touch the time to be | A |
| If hand might handle now or eye behold | E2 |
| My life and death ordained me from of old | E2 |
| Life palpable compact of blood and breath | T2 |
| Visible present naked very death | T2 |
| Should I desire to know before the day | Z2 |
| These that I know not nor is man that may | Z2 |
| For haply seeing my heart would break for fear | E3 |
| And my soul timeless cast its load off here | F3 |
| Its load of life too bitter love too sweet | Q2 |
| And fall down shamed and naked at thy feet | Q2 |
| God who wouldst take no pity of it nor give | G3 |
| One hour back one of all its hours to live | H3 |
| Clothed with my mortal body that once more | I3 |
| Once on this reach of barren beaten shore | I3 |
| This stormy strand of life ere sail were set | Y2 |
| Had haply felt love's arms about it yet | Y2 |
| Yea ere death's bark put off to seaward might | I |
| With many a grief have bought me one delight | I |
| That then should know me never Ah what years | M |
| Would I endure not filled up full with tears | N |
| Bitter like blood and dark as dread of death | T2 |
| To win one amorous hour of mingling breath | T2 |
| One fire eyed hour and sunnier than the sun | B |
| For all these nights and days like nights but one | B |
| One hour of heaven born once a stormless birth | C |
| For all these windy weary hours of earth | C |
| One but one hour from birth of joy to death | T2 |
| For all these hungering hours of feverish breath | T2 |
| And I should lose this having died and sinned | G2 |
| - | |
| And as man's anguish clamouring cried the wind | F2 |
| And as God's anger answering rang the sea | A |
| - | |
| And yet what life Lord God what life for me | A |
| Has thy strong wrath made ready Dost thou think | J3 |
| How lips whose thirst hath only tears to drink | J3 |
| Grow grey for grief untimely Dost thou know | B |
| O happy God how men wax weary of woe | B |
| Yea for their wrong's sake that thine hand hath done | B |
| Come even to hate thy semblance in the sun | B |
| Turn back from dawn and noon and all thy light | I |
| To make their souls one with the soul of night | I |
| Christ if thou hear yet or have eyes to see | A |
| Thou that hadst pity and hast no pity on me | A |
| Know'st thou no more as in this life's sharp span | B |
| What pain thou hadst on earth what pain hath man | B |
| Hast thou no care that all we suffer yet | Y2 |
| What help is ours of thee if thou forget | Y2 |
| What profit have we though thy blood were given | B |
| If we that sin bleed and be not forgiven | B |
| Not love but hate thou bitter God and strange | K3 |
| Whose heart as man's heart hath grown cold with change | K3 |
| Not love but hate thou showest us that have sinned | G2 |
| - | |
| And like a world's cry shuddering was the wind | F2 |
| And like a God's voice threatening was the sea | A |
| - | |
| O Nay Lord for thou wast gracious nay in thee | A |
| No change can come with time or varying fate | L3 |
| No tongue bid thine be less compassionate | M3 |
| No sterner eye rebuke for mercy thine | B |
| No sin put out thy pity no not mine | B |
| Thou knowest us Lord thou knowest us all we are | T |
| He and the soul that hath his soul for star | T |
| Thou knowest as I know Lord how much more worth | C |
| Than all souls clad and clasped about with earth | C |
| But most of all God how much more than I | A2 |
| Is this man's soul that surely shall not die | A2 |
| What righteousness what judgment Lord most high | A2 |
| Were this to bend a brow of doom as grim | N3 |
| As threats me me the adulterous wife on him | N3 |
| There lies none other nightly by his side | O3 |
| He hath not sought he shall not seek a bride | O3 |
| Far as God sunders earth from heaven above | K2 |
| So far was my love born beneath his love | K2 |
| I loved him as the sea wind loves the sea | A |
| To rend and ruin it only and waste but he | A |
| As the sea loves a sea bird loved he me | A |
| To foster and uphold my tired life's wing | L |
| And bounteously beneath me spread forth spring | L |
| A springtide space whereon to float or fly | A2 |
| A world of happy water whence the sky | A2 |
| Glowed goodlier lightening from so glad a glass | Y |
| Than with its own light only Now alas | Y |
| Cloud hath come down and clothed it round with storm | P3 |
| And gusts and fits of eddying winds deform | P3 |
| The feature of its glory Yet be thou | D3 |
| God merciful nay show but justice now | D3 |
| And let the sin in him that scarce was his | W |
| Stand expiated with exile and be this | X |
| The price for him the atonement this that I | A2 |
| With all the sin upon me live and die | A2 |
| With all thy wrath on me that most have sinned | G2 |
| - | |
| And like man's heart relenting sighed the wind | F2 |
| And as God's wrath subsiding sank the sea | A |
| - | |
| But if such grace be possible if it be | A |
| Not sin more strange than all sins past and worse | Q3 |
| Evil that cries upon thee for a curse | Q3 |
| To pray such prayers from such a heart do thou | D3 |
| Hear and make wide thine hearing toward me now | D3 |
| Let not my soul and his for ever dwell | O2 |
| Sundered though doom keep always heaven and hell | O2 |
| Irreconcilable infinitely apart | Q |
| Keep not in twain for ever heart and heart | Q |
| That once albeit by not thy law were one | B |
| Let this be not thy will that this be done | B |
| Let all else all thou wilt of evil be | A |
| But no doom none dividing him and me | A |
| - | |
| By this was heaven stirred eastward and there came | R3 |
| Up the rough ripple a labouring light like flame | R3 |
| And dawn sore trembling still and grey with fear | E3 |
| Looked hardly forth a face of heavier cheer | E3 |
| Than one which grief or dread yet half enshrouds | Q3 |
| Wild eyed and wan across the cleaving clouds | Q3 |
| And Iseult worn with watch long held on pain | B |
| Turned and her eye lit on the hound Hodain | B |
| And all her heart went out in tears and he | A |
| Laid his kind head along her bended knee | A |
| Till round his neck her arms went hard and all | C2 |
| The night past from her as a chain might fall | C2 |
| But yet the heart within her half undone | B |
| Wailed and was loth to let her see the sun | B |
| - | |
| And ere full day brought heaven and earth to flower | E |
| Far thence a maiden in a marriage bower | E |
| That moment hard by Tristram oversea | A |
| Woke with glad eyes Iseult of Brittany | A |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
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