Lancelot 06 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEDFGHIJBAKLMNCMM CMMMOMPDAQRSTQUEANVM MWMSXMEYZEDA2B2C2QB2 QD2EMMAMQEMMZD2QMVQ AMMCQE2Q B2MMZQZQAF2G2F2MD2DM MD2AH2D QMNMD2MAF2D2D2D2MF2M QDD2I2MF2MD2MDF2KMJ2 UDRQK2MD2MKD2QMMQF2Q MDD2MNQF2AD2F2L2NM2F 2ADD2MF2F2N2MKN2QMMM D2O2D2MMMF2MF2MDD2F2 P2J2MF2F2F2AMQ2QQMD2 D2MQF2MMR2K2QCS2MMF2 F2QJ2QF2QF2QCQMQK2F2 MJ2T2QLU2D2NF2DF2QAE 2MMMQD2AV2Q2MF2QMQ F2MMF2DAAF2QMJ2MF2NM MKF2F2Q WDT2MQD2MQW2F2D2 QDQQ QP2QNATX2D2D2A QDWF2DQQQWF2MQF2DQP2 F2QCH2QMD2QY2QCCX2MQ AQCAF2WF2CCQF2MD2WQM DF2DQQDD2M MQQQCM

The dark of Modred's hour not yet availing	A
Gawaine it was who gave the King no peace	B
Gawaine it was who goaded him and drove him	C
To Joyous Gard where now for long his army	D
Disheartened with unprofitable slaughter	E
Fought for their weary King and wearily	D
Died fighting Only Gawaine's hate it was	F
That held the King's knights and his warrior slaves	G
Close hived in exile dreaming of old scenes	H
Where Sorrow and her demon sister Fear	I
Now shared the dusty food of loneliness	J
From Orkney to Cornwall There was no peace	B
Nor could there be so Gawaine told the King	A
And so the King in anguish told himself	K
Until there was an end of one of them	L
Of Gawaine or the King or Lancelot	M
Who might have had an end as either knew	N
Long since of Arthur and of Gawaine with him	C
One evening in the moonlight Lancelot	M
And Bors his kinsman and the loyalest	M
If least assured of all who followed him	C
Sat gazing from an ivy cornered casement	M
In angry silence upon Arthur's horde	M
Who in the silver distance without sound	M
Were dimly burying dead men Sir Bors	O
Reiterating vainly what was told	M
As wholesome hearing for unhearing ears	P
Said now to Lancelot And though it be	D
For no more now than always let me speak	A
You have a pity for the King you say	Q
That is not hate and for Gawaine you have	R
A grief that is not hate Pity and grief	S
And the Queen all but shrieking out her soul	T
That morning when we snatched her from the faggots	Q
That were already crackling when we came	U
Why Lancelot if in you is an answer	E
Have you so vast a charity for the King	A
And so enlarged a grief for his gay nephew	N
Whose tireless hate for you has only one	V
Disastrous appetite You know for what	M
For your slow blood I knew you Lancelot	M
When all this would have been a merry fable	W
For smiling men to yawn at and forget	M
As they forget their physic Pity and grief	S
Are in your eyes I see them well enough	X
And I saw once with you in a far land	M
The glimmering of a Light that you saw nearer	E
Too near for your salvation or advantage	Y
If you be what you seem What I saw then	Z
Made life a wilder mystery than ever	E
And earth a new illusion You maybe	D
Saw pity and grief What I saw was a Gleam	A2
To fight for or to die for till we know	B2
Too much to fight or die Tonight you turn	C2
A page whereon your deeds are to engross	Q
Inexorably their story of tomorrow	B2
And then tomorrow How many of these tomorrows	Q
Are coming to ask unanswered why this war	D2
Was fought and fought for the vain sake of slaughter	E
Why carve a compost of a multitude	M
When only two discriminately despatched	M
Would sum the end of what you know is ending	A
And leave to you the scorch of no more blood	M
Upon your blistered soul The Light you saw	Q
Was not for this poor crumbling realm of Arthur	E
Nor more for Rome but for another state	M
That shall be neither Rome nor Camelot	M
Nor one that we may name Why longer then	Z
Are you and Gawaine to anoint with war	D2
That even in hell would be superfluous	Q
A reign already dying and ripe to die	M
I leave you to your last interpretation	V
Of what may be the pleasure of your madness	Q
	-
Meanwhile a mist was hiding the dim work	A
Of Arthur's men and like another mist	M
All gray came Guinevere to Lancelot	M
Whom Bors had left not having had of him	C
The largess of a word She laid her hands	Q
Upon his hair vexing him to brief speech	E2
And you are you like Bors	Q
	-
I may be so	B2
She said and she saw faintly where she gazed	M
Like distant insects of a shadowy world	M
Dim clusters here and there of shadowy men	Z
Whose occupation was her long abhorrence	Q
If he came here and went away again	Z
And all for nothing I may be like Bors	Q
Be glad at least that I am not like Mark	A
Of Cornwall who stood once behind a man	F2
And slew him without saying he was there	G2
Not Arthur I believe nor yet Gawaine	F2
Would have done quite like that though only God	M
May say what there's to come before this war	D2
Shall have an end unless you are to see	D
As I have seen so long a way to end it	M
	-
He frowned and watched again the coming mist	M
That hid with a cold veil of augury	D2
The stillness of an empire that was dying	A
And are you here to say that if I kill	H2
Gawaine and Arthur we shall both be happy	D
	-
Is there still such a word as happiness	Q
I come to tell you nothing Lancelot	M
That folly and waste have not already told you	N
Were you another man than Lancelot	M
I might say folly and fear But no no fear	D2
As I know fear was yet composed and wrought	M
By man for your delay and your undoing	A
God knows how cruelly and how truly now	F2
You might say that of all who breathe and suffer	D2
There may be others who are not so near	D2
To you as I am and so might say better	D2
What I say only with a tongue not apt	M
Or guarded for much argument A woman	F2
As men have known since Adam heard the first	M
Of Eve's interpreting of how it was	Q
In Paradise may see but one side only	D
Where maybe there are two to say no more	D2
Yet here for you and me and so for all	I2
Caught with us in this lamentable net	M
I see but one deliverance I see none	F2
Unless you cut for us a clean way out	M
So rending these hate woven webs of horror	D2
Before they mesh the world And if the world	M
Or Arthur's name be now a dying glory	D
Why bleed it for the sparing of a man	F2
Who hates you and a King that hates himself	K
If war be war and I make only blood	M
Of your red writing why dishonor Time	J2
For torture longer drawn in your slow game	U
Of empty slaughter Tomorrow it will be	D
The King's move I suppose and we shall have	R
One more magnificent waste of nameless pawns	Q
And of a few more knights God how you love	K2
This game to make so loud a shambles of it	M
When you have only twice to lift your finger	D2
To signal peace and give to this poor drenched	M
And clotted earth a time to heal itself	K
Twice over I say to you if war be war	D2
Why play with it Why look a thousand ways	Q
Away from what it is only to find	M
A few stale memories left that would requite	M
Your tears with your destruction Tears I say	Q
For I have seen your tears I see them now	F2
Although the moon is dimmer than it was	Q
Before I came I wonder if I dimmed it	M
I wonder if I brought this fog here with me	D
To make you chillier even than you are	D2
When I am not so near you Lancelot	M
There must be glimmering yet somewhere within you	N
The last spark of a little willingness	Q
To tell me why it is this war goes on	F2
Once I believed you told me everything	A
And what you may have hidden was no matter	D2
For what you told was all I needed then	F2
But crumbs that are a festival for joy	L2
Make a dry fare for sorrow and the few	N
Spared words that were enough to nourish faith	M2
Are for our lonely fears a frugal poison	F2
So Lancelot if only to bring back	A
For once the ghost of a forgotten mercy	D
Say now even though you strike me to the floor	D2
When you have said it for what untold end	M
All this goes on Am I not anything now	F2
Is Gawaine who would feed you to wild swine	F2
And laugh to see them tear you more than I am	N2
Is Arthur at whose word I was dragged out	M
To wear for you the fiery crown itself	K
Of human torture more to you than I am	N2
Am I because you saw death touch me once	Q
Too gross a trifle to be longer prized	M
Not many days ago when you lay hurt	M
And aching on your bed and I cried out	M
Aloud on heaven that I should bring you there	D2
You said you would have paid the price of hell	O2
To save me that foul morning from the fire	D2
You paid enough yet when you told me that	M
With death going on outside the while you said it	M
I heard the woman in me asking why	M
Nor do I wholly find an answer now	F2
In any shine of any far off Light	M
You may have seen Knowing the world you know	F2
How surely and how indifferently that Light	M
Shall burn through many a war that is to be	D
To which this war were no more than a smear	D2
On circumstance The world has not begun	F2
The Light you saw was not the Light of Rome	P2
Or Time though you seem battling here for time	J2
While you are still at war with Arthur's host	M
And Gawaine's hate How many thousand men	F2
Are going to their death before Gawaine	F2
And Arthur go to theirs and I to mine	F2
Lancelot looking off into the fog	A
In which his fancy found the watery light	M
Of a dissolving moon sighed without hope	Q2
Of saying what the Queen would have him say	Q
I fear my lady my fair nephew Bors	Q
Whose tongue affords a random wealth of sound	M
May lately have been scattering on the air	D2
For you a music less oracular	D2
Than to your liking Say then you had split	M
The uncovered heads of two men with an axe	Q
Not knowing whose heads if that's a palliation	F2
And seen their brains fly out and splash the ground	M
As they were common offal and then learned	M
That you had butchered Gaheris and Gareth	R2
Gareth who had for me a greater love	K2
Than any that has ever trod the ways	Q
Of a gross world that early would have crushed him	C
Even you in your quick fever of dispatch	S2
Might hesitate before you drew the blood	M
Of him that was their brother and my friend	M
Yes he was more my friend was I to know	F2
Than I had said or guessed for it was Gawaine	F2
Who gave to Bors the word that might have saved us	Q
And Arthur's fading empire for the time	J2
Till Modred had in his dark wormy way	Q
Crawled into light again with a new ruin	F2
At work in that occult snake's brain of his	Q
And even in your prompt obliteration	F2
Of Arthur from a changing world that rocks	Q
Itself into a dizziness around him	C
A moment of attendant reminiscence	Q
Were possible if not likely Had he made	M
A knight of you scrolling your name with his	Q
Among the first of men and in his love	K2
Inveterately the first and had you then	F2
Betrayed his fame and honor to the dust	M
That now is choking him you might in time	J2
You might I say to my degree succumb	T2
Forgive me if my lean words are for yours	Q
Too bare an answer and ascribe to them	L
No tinge of allegation or reproach	U2
What I said once to you I said for ever	D2
That I would pay the price of hell to save you	N
As for the Light leave that for me alone	F2
Or leave as much of it as yet for me	D
May shine Should I through any unforeseen	F2
Remote effect of awkwardness or chance	Q
Be done to death or durance by the King	A
I leave some writing wherein I beseech	E2
For you the clemency of afterthought	M
Were I to die and he to see me dead	M
My living prayer surviving the cold hand	M
That wrote would leave you in his larger prudence	Q
If I have known the King free and secure	D2
To bide the summoning of another King	A
More great than Arthur But all this is language	V2
And I know more than words have yet the scope	Q2
To show of what's to come Go now to rest	M
And sleep if there be sleep There was a moon	F2
And now there is no sky where the moon was	Q
Sometimes I wonder if this be the world	M
We live in or the world that lives in us	Q
	-
The new day with a cleansing crash of rain	F2
That washed and sluiced the soiled and hoof torn field	M
Of Joyous Gard prepared for Lancelot	M
And his wet men the not unwelcome scene	F2
Of a drenched emptiness without an army	D
Our friend the foe is given to dry fighting	A
Said Lionel advancing with a shrug	A
To Lancelot who saw beyond the rain	F2
And later Lionel said What fellows are they	Q
Who are so thirsty for their morning ride	M
That swimming horses would have hardly time	J2
To eat before they swam You Lancelot	M
If I see rather better than a blind man	F2
Are waiting on three pilgrims who must love you	N
To voyage a flood like this No friend have I	M
To whisper not of three on whom to count	M
For such a loyal wash The King himself	K
Would entertain a kindly qualm or so	F2
Before he suffered such a burst of heaven	F2
To splash even three musicians	Q
	-
Good Lionel	W
I thank you but you need afflict your fancy	D
No longer for my sake For these who come	T2
If I be not immoderately deceived	M
Are bearing with them the white flower of peace	Q
Which I could hope might never parch or wither	D2
Were I a stranger to this ravening world	M
Where we have mostly a few rags and tags	Q
Between our skins and those that wrap the flesh	W2
Of less familiar brutes we feed upon	F2
That we may feed the more on one another	D2
	-
Well now that we have had your morning grace	Q
Before our morning meat pray tell to me	D
The why and whence of this anomalous	Q
Horse riding offspring of the Fates Who are they	Q
	-
I do not read their features or their names	Q
But if I read the King they are from Rome	P2
Spurred here by the King's prayer for no delay	Q
And I pray God aloud that I say true	N
And after a long watching neither speaking	A
You do said Lionel for by my soul	T
I see no other than my lord the Bishop	X2
Who does God's holy work in Rochester	D2
Since you are here you may as well abide here	D2
While I go foraging	A
	-
Now in the gateway	Q
The Bishop who rode something heavily	D
Was glad for rest though grim in his refusal	W
At once of entertainment or refection	F2
What else you do Sir Lancelot receive me	D
As one among the honest when I say	Q
That my voluminous thanks were less by cantos	Q
Than my damp manner feels Nay hear my voice	Q
If once I'm off this royal animal	W
How o' God's name shall I get on again	F2
Moreover the King waits With your accord	M
Sir Lancelot I'll dry my rainy face	Q
While you attend what's herein written down	F2
In language of portentous brevity	D
For the King's gracious pleasure and for yours	Q
Whereof the burden is the word of Rome	P2
Requiring your deliverance of the Queen	F2
Not more than seven days hence The King returns	Q
Anon to Camelot and I go with him	C
Praise God if what he waits now is your will	H2
To end an endless war No recrudescence	Q
As you may soon remark of what is past	M
Awaits the Queen or any doubt soever	D2
Of the King's mercy Have you more to say	Q
Than Rome has written or do I perceive	Y2
Your tranquil acquiescence Is it so	Q
Then be it so Venite Pax vobiscum	C
To end an endless war with pax vobiscum'	C
Would seem a ready schedule for a bishop	X2
Would God that I might see the end of it	M
Lancelot like a statue in the gateway	Q
Regarded with a qualified rejoicing	A
The fading out of his three visitors	Q
Into the cold and swallowing wall of storm	C
Between him and the battle wearied King	A
And the unwearying hatred of Gawaine	F2
To Bors his nephew and to Lionel	W
He glossed a tale of Roman intercession	F2
Knowing that for a time and a long time	C
The sweetest fare that he might lay before them	C
Would hold an evil taste of compromise	Q
To Guinevere who questioned him at noon	F2
Of what by then had made of Joyous Gard	M
A shaken hive of legend heavy wonder	D2
He said what most it was the undying Devil	W
Who ruled him when he might would have him say	Q
Your confident arrangement of the board	M
For this day's game was notably not to be	D
Today was not for the King's move or mine	F2
But for the Bishop's and the board is empty	D
The words that I have waited for more days	Q
Than are to now my tallage of gray hairs	Q
Have come at last and at last you are free	D
So for a time there will be no more war	D2
And you are going home to Camelot	M
	-
To Camelot	M
To Camelot But his words	Q
Were said for no queen's hearing In his arms	Q
He caught her when she fell and in his arms	Q
He carried her away The word of Rome	C
Was in the rain There was no other sound	M

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme

Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation

<< Lancelot 05 Poem Lancelot 07 Poem>>

Write your comment about Lancelot 06 poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Best Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson

Recent Interactions*

This poem was read 25 times,

This poem was added to the favorite list by 0 members,

This poem was voted by 0 members.

(* Interactions only in the last 7 days)

New Poems

Wonderful Women
by Umaru Kanneh Boima
Freedom To Scratch In Peace
by Olute Aete
Happy New Year
by Felix Menda
Human Beings
by Dana Graslie
Lust
by Wisdom Greatness
An Isolated Tree's Song
by Sayeed Abubakar
A Strange Boy
by Sayeed Abubakar
O Soil
by Sayeed Abubakar
No War, No War-monger
by Sayeed Abubakar
Night's Town
by Sayeed Abubakar

Popular Poets

1. Emily Dickinson(2414 poems)
2. Madison Julius Cawein(1231 poems)
3. Ella Wheeler Wilcox(1136 poems)
4. William Wordsworth(1016 poems)
5. Robert Burns(986 poems)
6. Edgar Albert Guest(945 poems)
7. Thomas Moore(849 poems)
8. Robert Service(831 poems)