The Burden Of Nineveh Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBBCDDDDEFFGGGHHHHE IIIIJKKKKELLLLGMMNNE OOOOGPPPPEQQQQGRRRRE STUUGVVVVEJJJJGWWWWE XYYXGZZZZEPPPPGJJJJE A2B2C2B2GHHHHEZZZZGD 2AE2E2EZZZZGZZZZEF2G 2SG2GNH2NNEPPPPGIIII EI2I2I2I2GZZZZEZZZZG ZZZZEZZZZGHHHHEJ2J2J 2J2GK2K2L2L2EJJJJGZZ ZZEIn our Museum galleries | A |
To day I lingered o'er the prize | B |
Dead Greece vouchsafes to living eyes | B |
Her Art for ever in fresh wise | B |
From hour to hour rejoicing me | C |
Sighing I turned at last to win | D |
Once more the London dirt and din | D |
And as I made the swing door spin | D |
And issued they were hoisting in | D |
A wing d beast from Nineveh | E |
A human face the creature wore | F |
And hoofs behind and hoofs before | F |
And flanks with dark runes fretted o'er | G |
'Twas bull 'twas mitred Minotaur | G |
A dead disbowelled mystery | G |
The mummy of a buried faith | H |
Stark from the charnel without scathe | H |
Its wings stood for the light to bathe | H |
Such fossil cerements as might swathe | H |
The very corpse of Nineveh | E |
The print of its first rush wrapping | I |
Wound ere it dried still ribbed the thing | I |
What song did the brown maidens sing | I |
From purple mouths alternating | I |
When that was woven languidly | J |
What vows what rites what prayers preferr'd | K |
What songs has the strange image heard | K |
In what blind vigil stood interr'd | K |
For ages till an English word | K |
Broke silence first at Nineveh | E |
Oh when upon each sculptured court | L |
Where even the wind might not resort | L |
O'er which Time passed of like import | L |
With the wild Arab boys at sport | L |
A living face looked in to see | G |
Oh seemed it not the spell once broke | M |
As though the carven warriors woke | M |
As though the shaft the string forsook | N |
The cymbals clashed the chariots shook | N |
And there was life in Nineveh | E |
On London stones our sun anew | O |
The beast's recovered shadow threw | O |
No shade that plague of darkness knew | O |
No light no shade while older grew | O |
By ages the old earth and sea | G |
Lo thou could all thy priests have shown | P |
Such proof to make thy godhead known | P |
From their dead Past thou liv'st alone | P |
And still thy shadow is thine own | P |
Even as of yore in Nineveh | E |
That day whereof we keep record | Q |
When near thy city gates the Lord | Q |
Sheltered His Jonah with a gourd | Q |
This sun I said here present pour'd | Q |
Even thus this shadow that I see | G |
This shadow has been shed the same | R |
From sun and moon from lamps which came | R |
For prayer from fifteen days of flame | R |
The last while smouldered to a name | R |
Sardanapalus' Nineveh | E |
Within thy shadow haply once | S |
Sennacherib has knelt whose sons | T |
Smote him between the altar stones | U |
Or pale Semiramis her zones | U |
Of gold her incense brought to thee | G |
In love for grace in war for aid | V |
Ay and who else till 'neath thy shade | V |
Within his trenches newly made | V |
Last year the Christian knelt and pray'd | V |
Not to thy strength in Nineveh | E |
Now thou poor god within this hall | J |
Where the blank windows blind the wall | J |
From pedestal to pedestal | J |
The kind of light shall on thee fall | J |
Which London takes the day to be | G |
While school foundations in the act | W |
Of holiday three files compact | W |
Shall learn to view thee as a fact | W |
Connected with that zealous tract | W |
ROME Babylon and Nineveh | E |
Deemed they of this those worshippers | X |
When in some mythic chain of verse | Y |
Which man shall not again rehearse | Y |
The faces of thy ministers | X |
Yearned pale with bitter ecstasy | G |
Greece Egypt Rome did any god | Z |
Before whose feet men knelt unshod | Z |
Deem that in this unblest abode | Z |
Another scarce more unknown god | Z |
Should house with him from Nineveh | E |
Ah in what quarries lay the stone | P |
From which this pillared pile has grown | P |
Unto man's need how long unknown | P |
Since those thy temples court and cone | P |
Rose far in desert history | G |
Ah what is here that does not lie | J |
All strange to thine awakened eye | J |
Ah what is here can testify | J |
Save that dumb presence of the sky | J |
Unto thy day and Nineveh | E |
Why of those mummies in the room | A2 |
Above there might indeed have come | B2 |
One out of Egypt to thy home | C2 |
An alien Nay but were not some | B2 |
Of these thine own antiquity | G |
And now they and their gods and thou | H |
All relics here together now | H |
Whose profit whether bull or cow | H |
Isis or Ibis who or how | H |
Whether of Thebes or Nineveh | E |
The consecrated metals found | Z |
And ivory tablets underground | Z |
Winged teraphim and creatures crown'd | Z |
When air and daylight filled the mound | Z |
Fell into dust immediately | G |
And even as these the images | D2 |
Of awe and worship even as these | A |
So smitten with the sun's increase | E2 |
Her glory mouldered and did cease | E2 |
From immemorial Nineveh | E |
The day her builders made their halt | Z |
Those cities of the lake of salt | Z |
Stood firmly 'stablished without fault | Z |
Made proud with pillars of basalt | Z |
With sardonyx and porphyry | G |
The day that Jonah bore abroad | Z |
To Nineveh the voice of God | Z |
A brackish lake lay in his road | Z |
Where erst Pride fixed her sure abode | Z |
As then in royal Nineveh | E |
The day when he Pride's lord and Man's | F2 |
Showed all the kingdoms at a glance | G2 |
To Him before whose countenance | S |
The years recede the years advance | G2 |
And said Fall down and worship me | G |
'Mid all the pomp beneath that look | N |
Then stirred there haply some rebuke | H2 |
Where to the wind the Salt Pools shook | N |
And in those tracts of life forsook | N |
That knew thee not O Nineveh | E |
Delicate harlot On thy throne | P |
Thou with a world beneath thee prone | P |
In state for ages sat'st alone | P |
And needs were years and lustres flown | P |
Ere strength of man could vanquish thee | G |
Whom even thy victor foes must bring | I |
Still royal among maids that sing | I |
As with doves' voices taboring | I |
Upon their breasts unto the King | I |
A kingly conquest Nineveh | E |
Here woke my thought The wind's slow sway | I2 |
Had waxed and like the human play | I2 |
Of scorn that smiling spreads away | I2 |
The sunshine shivered off the day | I2 |
The callous wind it seemed to me | G |
Swept up the shadow from the ground | Z |
And pale as whom the Fates astound | Z |
The god forlorn stood winged and crown'd | Z |
Within I knew the cry lay bound | Z |
Of the dumb soul of Nineveh | E |
And as I turned my sense half shut | Z |
Still saw the crowds of kerb and rut | Z |
Go past as marshalled to the strut | Z |
Of ranks in gypsum quaintly cut | Z |
It seemed in one same pageantry | G |
They followed forms which had been erst | Z |
To pass till on my sight should burst | Z |
That future of the best or worst | Z |
When some may question which was first | Z |
Of London or of Nineveh | E |
For as that Bull god once did stand | Z |
And watched the burial clouds of sand | Z |
Till these at last without a hand | Z |
Rose o'er his eyes another land | Z |
And blinded him with destiny | G |
So may he stand again till now | H |
In ships of unknown sail and prow | H |
Some tribe of the Australian plough | H |
Bear him afar a relic now | H |
Of London not of Nineveh | E |
Or it may chance indeed that when | J2 |
Man's age is hoary among men | J2 |
His centuries threescore and ten | J2 |
His furthest childhood shall seem then | J2 |
More clear than later times may be | G |
Who finding in this desert place | K2 |
This form shall hold us for some race | K2 |
That walked not in Christ's lowly ways | L2 |
But bowed its pride and vowed its praise | L2 |
Unto the God of Nineveh | E |
The smile rose first anon drew nigh | J |
The thought Those heavy wings spread high | J |
So sure of flight which do not fly | J |
That set gaze never on the sky | J |
Those scriptured flanks it cannot see | G |
Its crown a brow contracting load | Z |
Its planted feet which trust the sod | Z |
So grew the image as I trod | Z |
O Nineveh was this thy God | Z |
Thine also mighty Nineveh | E |
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Burden Of Nineveh poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Best Poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti