Lancelot Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKL MKKNAOAPQKRKSTPUVWXK LYKYZSYYMYQMYYKKMQA2 YB2MC2D2E2E2C2MF2AG2 LMMMMYC2KKYH2 C2MMC2E2MMMKMMAI2J2F 2K2Q L2M2MYN2YO2P2YMYMQ2D 2MK2YG2YML R2LMMMS2K2YM2YYYLT2U 2D2V2W2MMAAHMX2YMM2Y WY2MZC2MY Z2T2YC2AMM2YHD2C2YC2 C2MD2Y WAMZYC2AM2YMMMYYA3MB 3WC3MGawaine 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
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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,
Best Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson