A Last Confession Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST KUVSWJXYZSA2B2C2D2SE 2F2C2G2RH2VI2C2J2K2N XGRL2M2N2RO2P2Q2R2S2 T2U2V2W2SRX2Y2K2Z2A3 B3C3VD3W2J2E3U2BF3F2 G3H3GI3Y2J3SK3S2L3M3 G2SN3K2Y2O3K2I3K2F2S P3Q3N2WR3K2OS3K2T3U3 V3W3X3Y3Z3RRRA4A3E3R B4E3C4D4RE4F4G4A3L3H 4I4J4K4F2O2L4M4GI3RK 2N4O4BP4H2Q4R4VB3S4N Y2T4BU3F2S4U4V4GJ2W4 X4XC2Y4BC2Z4B3VW

Our Lombard country girls along the coastA
Wear daggers in their garters for they knowB
That they might hate another girl to deathC
Or meet a German lover Such a knifeD
I bought her with a hilt of horn and pearlE
Father you cannot know of all my thoughtsF
That day in going to meet her that last dayG
For the last time she said of all the loveH
And all the hopeless hope that she might changeI
And go back with me Ah and everywhereJ
At places we both knew along the roadK
Some fresh shape of herself as once she wasL
Grew present at my side until it seemedM
So close they gathered round me they would allN
Be with me when I reached the spot at lastO
To plead my cause with her against herselfP
So changed O Father if you knew all thisQ
You cannot know then you would know too FatherR
And only then if God can pardon meS
What can be told I'll tell if you will hearT
I passed a village fair upon my roadK
And thought being empty handed I would takeU
Some little present such might prove I saidV
Either a pledge between us or God help meS
A parting gift And there it was I boughtW
The knife I spoke of such as women wearJ
That day some three hours afterwards I foundX
For certain it must be a parting giftY
And standing silent now at last I lookedZ
Into her scornful face and heard the seaS
Still trying hard to din into my earsA2
Some speech it knew which still might change her heartB2
If only it could make me understandC2
One moment thus Another and her faceD2
Seemed further off than the last line of seaS
So that I thought if now she were to speakE2
I could not hear her Then again I knewF2
All as we stood together on the sandC2
At Iglio in the first thin shade o' the hillsG2
Take it I said and held it out to herR
While the hilt glanced within my trembling holdH2
Take it and keep it for my sake I saidV
Her neck unbent not neither did her eyesI2
Move nor her foot left beating of the sandC2
Only she put it by from her and laughedJ2
Father you hear my speech and not her laughK2
But God heard that Will God remember allN
It was another laugh than the sweet soundX
Which rose from her sweet childish heart that dayG
Eleven years before when first I found herR
Alone upon the hill side and her curlsL2
Shook down in the warm grass as she looked upM2
Out of her curls in my eyes bent to hersN2
She might have served a painter to pourtrayR
That heavenly child which in the latter daysO2
Shall walk between the lion and the lambP2
I had been for nights in hiding worn and sickQ2
And hardly fed and so her words at firstR2
Seemed fiftul like the talking of the treesS2
And voices in the air that knew my nameT2
And I remember that I sat me downU2
Upon the slope with her and thought the worldV2
Must be all over or had never beenW2
We seemed there so alone And soon she told meS
Her parents both were gone away from herR
I thought perhaps she meant that they had diedX2
But when I asked her this she looked againY2
Into my face and said that yestereveK2
They kissed her long and wept and made her weepZ2
And gave her all the bread they had with themA3
And then had gone together up the hillB3
Where we were sitting now and had walked onC3
Into the great red light and so she saidV
I have come up here too and when this eveningD3
They step out of the light as they stepped inW2
I shall be here to kiss them And she laughedJ2
Then I bethought me suddenly of the famineE3
And how the church steps throughout all the townU2
When last I had been there a month agoB
Swarmed with starved folk and how the bread was weighedF3
By Austrians armed and women that I knewF2
For wives and mothers walked the public streetG3
Saying aloud that if their husbands fearedH3
To snatch the children's food themselves would stayG
Till they had earned it there So then this childI3
Was piteous to me for all told me thenY2
Her parents must have left her to God's chanceJ3
To man's or to the Church's charityS
Because of the great famine rather thanK3
To watch her growing thin between their kneesS2
With that God took my mother's voice and spokeL3
And sights and sounds came back and things long sinceM3
And all my childhood found me on the hillsG2
And so I took her with meS
I was youngN3
Scarce man then Father but the cause which gaveK2
The wounds I die of now had brought me thenY2
Some wounds already and I lived aloneO3
As any hiding hunted man must liveK2
It was no easy thing to keep a childI3
In safety for herself it was not safeK2
And doubled my own danger but I knewF2
That God would help meS
Yet a little whileP3
Pardon me Father if I pause I thinkQ3
I have been speaking to you of some mattersN2
There was no need to speak of have I notW
You do not know how clearly those things stoodR3
Within my mind which I have spoken ofK2
Nor how they strove for utterance Life all pastO
Is like the sky when the sun sets in itS3
Clearest where furthest offK2
I told you howT3
She scorned my parting gift and laughed And yetU3
A woman's laugh's another thing sometimesV3
I think they laugh in Heaven I know last nightW3
I dreamed I saw into the garden of GodX3
Where women walked whose painted imagesY3
I have seen with candles round them in the churchZ3
They bent this way and that one to anotherR
Playing and over the long golden hairR
Of each there floated like a ring of fireR
Which when she stooped stooped with her and when she roseA4
Rose with her Then a breeze flew in among themA3
As if a window had been opened in heavenE3
For God to give His blessing from beforeR
This world of ours should set for in my dreamB4
I thought our world was setting and the sunE3
Flared a spent taper and beneath that gustC4
The rings of light quivered like forest leavesD4
Then all the blessed maidens who were thereR
Stood up together as it were a voiceE4
That called them and they threw their tresses backF4
And smote their palms and all laughed up at onceG4
For the strong heavenly joy they had in themA3
To hear God bless the world Wherewith I wokeL3
And looking round I saw as usualH4
That she was standing there with her long locksI4
Pressed to her side and her laugh ended theirsJ4
For always when I see her now she laughsK4
And yet her childish laughter haunts me tooF2
The life of this dead terror as in daysO2
When she a child dwelt with me I must tellL4
Something of those days yet before the endM4
I brought her from the city one such dayG
When she was still a merry loving childI3
The earliest gift I mind my giving herR
A little image of a flying LoveK2
Made of our coloured glass ware in his handsN4
A dart of gilded metal and a torchO4
And him she kissed and me and fain would knowB
Why were his poor eyes blindfold why the wingsP4
And why the arrow What I knew I toldH2
Of Venus and of Cupid strange old talesQ4
And when she heard that he could rule the lovesR4
Of men and women still she shook her headV
And wondered and Nay nay she murmured stillB3
So strong and he a younger child than IS4
And then she'd have me fix him on the wallN
Fronting her little bed and then againY2
She needs must fix him there herself becauseT4
I gave him to her and she loved him soB
And he should make her love me better yetU3
If women loved the more the more they grewF2
But the fit place upon the wall was highS4
For her and so I held her in my armsU4
And each time that the heavy pruning hookV4
I gave her for a hammer slipped awayG
As it would often still she laughed and laughedJ2
And kissed and kissed me But amid her mirthW4
Just as she hung the image on the nailX4
It slipped and all its fragments strewed the groundX
And as it fell she screamed for in her handC2
The dart had entered deeply and drawn bloodY4
And so her laughter turned to tears and OhB
I said the while I bandaged the small handC2
That I should be the first to make you bleedZ4
Who love and love and love you kissing stillB3
The fingers till I got her safe to bedV
And still she sobbed notW

Dante Gabriel Rossetti



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