Sestina Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEF FAEBDC CFDABE ECBFAD DEACFB BDFECA AFC| I have come alas to the great circle of shadow | A |
| to the short day and to the whitening hills | B |
| when the colour is all lost from the grass | C |
| though my desire will not lose its green | D |
| so rooted is it in this hardest stone | E |
| that speaks and feels as though it were a woman | F |
| - | |
| And likewise this heaven born woman | F |
| stays frozen like the snow in shadow | A |
| and is unmoved or moved like a stone | E |
| by the sweet season that warms all the hills | B |
| and makes them alter from pure white to green | D |
| so as to clothe them with the flowers and grass | C |
| - | |
| When her head wears a crown of grass | C |
| she draws the mind from any other woman | F |
| because she blends her gold hair with the green | D |
| so well that Amor lingers in their shadow | A |
| he who fastens me in these low hills | B |
| more certainly than lime fastens stone | E |
| - | |
| Her beauty has more virtue than rare stone | E |
| The wound she gives cannot be healed with grass | C |
| since I have travelled through the plains and hills | B |
| to find my release from such a woman | F |
| yet from her light had never a shadow | A |
| thrown on me by hill wall or leaves green | D |
| - | |
| I have seen her walk all dressed in green | D |
| so formed she would have sparked love in a stone | E |
| that love I bear for her very shadow | A |
| so that I wished her in those fields of grass | C |
| as much in love as ever yet was woman | F |
| closed around by all the highest hills | B |
| - | |
| The rivers will flow upwards to the hills | B |
| before this wood that is so soft and green | D |
| takes fire as might ever lovely woman | F |
| for me who would choose to sleep on stone | E |
| all my life and go eating grass | C |
| only to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow | A |
| - | |
| Whenever the hills cast blackest shadow | A |
| with her sweet green the lovely woman | F |
| hides it as a man hides stone in grass | C |
Dante Alighieri
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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