Lancelot Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKL MKKNAOAPQKRKSTPUVWXK LYKYZSYYMYQMYYKKMQA2 YB2MC2D2E2E2C2MF2AG2 LMMMMYC2KKYH2 C2MMC2E2MMMKMMAI2J2F 2K2Q L2M2MYN2YO2P2YMYMQ2D 2MK2YG2YML R2LMMMS2K2YM2YYYLT2U 2D2V2W2MMAAHMX2YMM2Y WY2MZC2MY Z2T2YC2AMM2YHD2C2YC2 C2MD2Y WAMZYC2AM2YMMMYYA3MB 3WC3M| Gawaine aware again of Lancelot | A |
| In the King s garden coughed and followed him | B |
| Whereat he turned and stood with folded arms | C |
| And weary waiting eyes cold and half closed | D |
| Hard eyes where doubts at war with memories | E |
| Fanned a sad wrath Why frown upon a friend | F |
| Few live that have too many Gawaine said | G |
| And wished unsaid so thinly came the light | H |
| Between the narrowing lids at which he gazed | I |
| And who of us are they that name their friends | J |
| Lancelot said They live that have not any | K |
| Why do they live Gawaine Ask why and answer | L |
| - | |
| Two men of an elected eminence | M |
| They stood for a time silent Then Gawaine | K |
| Acknowledging the ghost of what was gone | K |
| Put out his hand Rather I say why ask | N |
| If I be not the friend of Lancelot | A |
| May I be nailed alive along the ground | O |
| And emmets eat me dead If I be not | A |
| The friend of Lancelot may I be fried | P |
| With other liars in the pans of hell | Q |
| What item otherwise of immolation | K |
| Your Darkness may invent be it mine to endure | R |
| And yours to gloat on For the time between | K |
| Consider this thing you see that is my hand | S |
| If once it has been yours a thousand times | T |
| Why not again Gawaine has never lied | P |
| To Lancelot and this of all wrong days | U |
| This day before the day when you go south | V |
| To God knows what accomplishment of exile | W |
| Were surely an ill day for lies to find | X |
| An issue or a cause or an occasion | K |
| King Ban your father and King Lot my father | L |
| Were they alive would shake their heads in sorrow | Y |
| To see us as we are and I shake mine | K |
| In wonder Will you take my hand or no | Y |
| Strong as I am I do not hold it out | Z |
| For ever and on air You see my hand | S |
| Lancelot gave his hand there to Gawaine | Y |
| Who took it held it and then let it go | Y |
| Chagrined with its indifference | M |
| Yes Gawaine | Y |
| I go tomorrow and I wish you well | Q |
| You and your brothers Gareth Gaheris | M |
| And Agravaine yes even Agravaine | Y |
| Whose tongue has told all Camelot and all Britain | Y |
| More lies than yet have hatched of Modred s envy | K |
| You say that you have never lied to me | K |
| And I believe it so Let it be so | M |
| For now and always Gawaine I wish you well | Q |
| Tomorrow I go south as Merlin went | A2 |
| But not for Merlin s end I go Gawaine | Y |
| And leave you to your ways There are ways left | B2 |
| There are three ways I know three famous ways | M |
| And all in Holy Writ Gawaine said smiling | C2 |
| The snake s way and the eagle s way are two | D2 |
| And then we have a man s way with a maid | E2 |
| Or with a woman who is not a maid | E2 |
| Your late way is to send all women scudding | C2 |
| To the last flash of the last cramoisy | M |
| While you go south to find the fires of God | F2 |
| Since we came back again to Camelot | A |
| From our immortal Quest I came back first | G2 |
| No man has known you for the man you were | L |
| Before you saw whatever t was you saw | M |
| To make so little of kings and queens and friends | M |
| Thereafter Modred Agravaine My brothers | M |
| And what if they be brothers What are brothers | M |
| If they be not our friends your friends and mine | Y |
| You turn away and my words are no mark | C2 |
| On you affection or your memory | K |
| So be it then if so it is to be | K |
| God save you Lancelot for by Saint Stephen | Y |
| You are no more than man to save yourself | H2 |
| - | |
| Gawaine I do not say that you are wrong | C2 |
| Or that you are ill seasoned in your lightness | M |
| You say that all you know is what you saw | M |
| And on your own averment you saw nothing | C2 |
| Your spoken word Gawaine I have not weighed | E2 |
| In those unhappy scales of inference | M |
| That have no beam but one made out of hates | M |
| And fears and venomous conjecturings | M |
| Your tongue is not the sword that urges me | K |
| Now out of Camelot Two other swords | M |
| There are that are awake and in their scabbards | M |
| Are parching for the blood of Lancelot | A |
| Yet I go not away for fear of them | I2 |
| But for a sharper care You say the truth | J2 |
| But not when you contend the fires of God | F2 |
| Are my one fear for there is one fear more | K2 |
| Therefore I go Gawaine I wish you well | Q |
| - | |
| Well wishing in a way is well enough | L2 |
| So in a way is caution so in a way | M2 |
| Are leeches neatherds and astrologers | M |
| Lancelot listen Sit you down and listen | Y |
| You talk of swords and fears and banishment | N2 |
| Two swords you say Modred and Agravaine | Y |
| You mean Had you meant Gaheris and Gareth | O2 |
| Or willed an evil on them I should welcome | P2 |
| And hasten your farewell But Agravaine | Y |
| Hears little what I say his ears are Modred s | M |
| The King is Modred s father and the Queen | Y |
| A prepossession of Modred s lunacy | M |
| So much for my two brothers whom you fear | Q2 |
| Not fearing for yourself I say to you | D2 |
| Fear not for anything and so be wise | M |
| And amiable again as heretofore | K2 |
| Let Modred have his humor and Agravaine | Y |
| His tongue The two of them have done their worst | G2 |
| And having done their worst what have they done | Y |
| A whisper now and then a chirrup or so | M |
| In corners and what else Ask what and answer | L |
| - | |
| Still with a frown that had no faith in it | R2 |
| Lancelot pitying Gawaine s lost endeavour | L |
| To make an evil jest of evidence | M |
| Sat fronting him with a remote forbearance | M |
| Whether for Gawaine blind or Gawaine false | M |
| Or both or neither he could not say yet | S2 |
| If ever and to himself he said no more | K2 |
| Than he said now aloud What else Gawaine | Y |
| What else am I to say Then ruin I say | M2 |
| Destruction dissolution desolation | Y |
| I say should I compound with jeopardy now | Y |
| For there are more than whispers here Gawaine | Y |
| The way that we have gone so long together | L |
| Has underneath our feet without our will | T2 |
| Become a twofold faring Yours I trust | U2 |
| May lead you always on as it has led you | D2 |
| To praise and to much joy Mine I believe | V2 |
| Leads off to battles that are not yet fought | W2 |
| And to the Light that once had blinded me | M |
| When I came back from seeing what I saw | M |
| I saw no place for me in Camelot | A |
| There is no place for me in Camelot | A |
| There is no place for me save where the Light | H |
| May lead me and to that place I shall go | M |
| Meanwhile I lay upon your soul no load | X2 |
| Of counsel or of empty admonition | Y |
| Only I ask of you should strife arise | M |
| In Camelot to remember if you may | M2 |
| That you ve an ardor that outruns your reason | Y |
| Also a glamour that outshines your guile | W |
| And you are a strange hater I know that | Y2 |
| And I m in fortune that you hate not me | M |
| Yet while we have our sins to dream about | Z |
| Time has done worse for time than in our making | C2 |
| Albeit there may be sundry falterings | M |
| And falls against us in the Book of Man | Y |
| - | |
| Praise Adam you are mellowing at last | Z2 |
| I ve always liked this world and would so still | T2 |
| And if it is your new Light leads you on | Y |
| To such an admirable gait for God s sake | C2 |
| Follow it follow it follow it Lancelot | A |
| Follow it as you never followed glory | M |
| Once I believed that I was on the way | M2 |
| That you call yours but I came home again | Y |
| To Camelot and Camelot was right | H |
| For the world knows its own that knows not you | D2 |
| You are a thing too vaporous to be sharing | C2 |
| The carnal feast of life You mow down men | Y |
| Like elder stems and you leave women sighing | C2 |
| For one more sight of you but they do wrong | C2 |
| You are a man of mist and have no shadow | M |
| God save you Lancelot If I laugh at you | D2 |
| I laugh in envy and in admiration | Y |
| - | |
| The joyless evanescence of a smile | W |
| Discovered on the face of Lancelot | A |
| By Gawaine s unrelenting vigilance | M |
| Wavered and with a sullen change went out | Z |
| And then there was the music of a woman | Y |
| Laughing behind them and a woman spoke | C2 |
| Gawaine you said God save you Lancelot | A |
| Why should He save him any more to day | M2 |
| Than on another day What has he done | Y |
| Gawaine that God should save him Guinevere | M |
| With many questions in her dark blue eyes | M |
| And one gay jewel in her golden hair | M |
| Had come upon the two of them unseen | Y |
| Till now she was a russet apparition | Y |
| At which the two arose one with a dash | A3 |
| Of easy leisure in his courtliness | M |
| One with a stately calm that might have pleased | B3 |
| The Queen of a strange land indifferently | W |
| The firm incisive languor of her speech | C3 |
| Heard once was heard through battles | M |
Edwin Arlington Robinson
(2)
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About Lancelot
Lancelot is a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
Write your comment about Lancelot poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Jewels Love: Lancelot is a book-length poem. This is not the complete poem. It's not even the complete Part I of the poem. There are 34 more lines in Part I.
AND: where this ends is not even the end of that particular line! The complete line is:
Heard once, was heard through battles: "Lancelot,
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