Nero Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDDEFGGH DDIJKLADDDDM NOIPKQKRDSKTUVW IKHXYVZA2CB2C2HD2E2F 2DG2H2I2DDDJ2K2G2L2M 2N2O2P2EQ2R2KS2YT2U2 DKDV2KN2P2CDDDW2DP2Y DX2Y2DDH| This Rome that was the toil of many men | A |
| The consummation of laborious years | B |
| Fulfilment's crown to visions of the dead | C |
| And image of the wide desire of kings | D |
| Is made my darkling dream's effulgency | D |
| Fuel of vision brief embodiment | E |
| Of wandering will and wastage of the strong | F |
| Fierce ecstasy of one tremendous hour | G |
| When ages piled on ages like a pyre | G |
| Flamed to the years behind and years to be | H |
| - | |
| Yet any sunset were as much as this | D |
| Save for the music forced from tongueless things | D |
| The rape of Matter's huge unchorded harp | I |
| By the many fingered fire a music pierced | J |
| With the tense voice of Life more quick to cry | K |
| Its agony and save that I believed | L |
| The radiance redder for the blood of men | A |
| Destruction hastens and intensifies | D |
| The process that is beauty manifests | D |
| Ranges of form unknown before and gives | D |
| Motion and voice and hue where otherwise | D |
| Bleak inexpressiveness had levelled all | M |
| - | |
| If one create there is the lengthy toil | N |
| The labored years and days league toward an end | O |
| Less than the measure of desire mayhap | I |
| After the sure consuming of all strength | P |
| And strain of faculties that otherwhere | K |
| Were loosed upon enjoyment and at last | Q |
| Remains to one capacity nor power | K |
| For pleasure in the thing that he hath made | R |
| But on destruction hangs but little use | D |
| Of time or faculty but all is turned | S |
| To the one purpose unobstructed pure | K |
| Of sensuous rapture and observant joy | T |
| And from the intensities of death and ruin | U |
| One draws a heightened and completer life | V |
| And both extends and vindicates himself | W |
| - | |
| I would I were a god with all the scope | I |
| Of attributes that are the essential core | K |
| Of godhead and its visibility | H |
| I am but emperor and hold awhile | X |
| The power to hasten death upon its way | Y |
| And cry a halt to worn and lagging Life | V |
| For others but for mine own self may not | Z |
| Delay the one nor bid the other speed | A2 |
| There have been many kings and they are dead | C |
| And have no power in death save what the wind | B2 |
| Confers upon their blown and brainless dust | C2 |
| To vex the eyeballs of posterity | H |
| But were I God I would be overlord | D2 |
| Of many kings and were as breath to guide | E2 |
| Their dust of destiny And were I God | F2 |
| Exempt from this mortality which clogs | D |
| Perception and clear exercise of will | G2 |
| What rapture it would be if but to watch | H2 |
| Destruction crouching at the back of Time | I2 |
| The tongueless dooms which dog the travelling suns | D |
| The vampire Silence at the breast of worlds | D |
| Fire without light that gnaws the base of things | D |
| And Lethe's mounting tide that rots the stone | J2 |
| Of fundamental spheres This were enough | K2 |
| Till such time as the dazzled wings of will | G2 |
| Came up with power's accession scarcely felt | L2 |
| For very suddenness Then I would urge | M2 |
| The strong contention and conflicting might | N2 |
| Of Chaos and Creation matching them | O2 |
| Those immemorial powers inimical | P2 |
| And all their stars and gulfs subservient | E |
| Dynasts of time and anarchs of the dark | Q2 |
| In closer war reverseless and would set | R2 |
| New discord at the universal core | K |
| A Samson principle to bring it down | S2 |
| In one magnificence of ruin Yea | Y |
| The monster Chaos were mine unleashed hound | T2 |
| And all my power Destruction's own right arm | U2 |
| - | |
| I would exult to mark the smouldering stars | D |
| Renew beneath my breath their elder fire | K |
| And feed upon themselves to nothingness | D |
| The might of suns slow paced with swinging weight | V2 |
| Of myriad worlds were made at my desire | K |
| One orb of roaring and torrential light | N2 |
| Through which the voice of Life were audible | P2 |
| And singing of the immemorial dead | C |
| Whose dust is loosened into vaporous wings | D |
| With soaring wrack of systems ruinous | D |
| And were I weary of the glare of these | D |
| I would tear out the eyes of light and stand | W2 |
| Above a chaos of extinguished suns | D |
| That crowd and grind and shiver thunderously | P2 |
| Lending vast voice and motion but no ray | Y |
| To the stretched silence of the blinded gulfs | D |
| Thus would I give my godhead space and speech | X2 |
| For its assertion and thus pleasure it | Y2 |
| Hastening the feet of Time with cast of worlds | D |
| Like careless pebbles or with shattered suns | D |
| Brightening the aspect of Eternity | H |
Clark Ashton Smith
(1)
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