Prisoner, The - (a Fragment) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDD EEFG HHII JJKK GILL MMNN OOPP IINN QRSS TQUU VVNN WWXX NNYZ A2A2B2B2 C2C2D2D2In the dungeon crypts idly did I stray | A |
Reckless of the lives wasting there away | A |
Draw the ponderous bars open Warder stern | B |
He dared not say me nay the hinges harshly turn | B |
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Our guests are darkly lodged I whisper'd gazing through | C |
The vault whose grated eye showed heaven more grey than blue | C |
This was when glad spring laughed in awaking pride | D |
Aye darkly lodged enough returned my sullen guide | D |
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Then God forgive my youth forgive my careless tongue | E |
I scoffed as the chill chains on the damp flag stones rung | E |
Confined in triple walls art thou so much to fear | F |
That we must bind thee down and clench thy fetters here | G |
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The captive raised her face it was as soft and mild | H |
As sculpted marble saint or slumbering unwean'd child | H |
It was so soft and mild it was so sweet and fair | I |
Pain could not trace a line nor grief a shadow there | I |
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The captive raised her hand and pressed it to her brow | J |
I have been struck she said and I am suffering now | J |
Yet these are little worth your bolts and irons strong | K |
And were they forged in steel they could not hold me long | K |
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Hoarse laughed the jailor grim Shall I be won to hear | G |
Dost think fond dreaming wretch that I shall grant thy prayer | I |
Or better still wilt melt my master's heart with groans | L |
Ah sooner might the sun thaw down these granite stones | L |
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My master's voice is low his aspect bland and kind | M |
But hard as hardest flint the soul that lurks behind | M |
And I am rough and rude yet not more rough to see | N |
Than is the hidden ghost that has its home in me | N |
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About her lips there played a smile of almost scorn | O |
My friend she gently said you have not heard me mourn | O |
When you my kindred's lives my lost life can restore | P |
Then I may weep and sue but never friend before | P |
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Still let my tyrants know I am not doom'd to wear | I |
Year after year in gloom and desolate despair | I |
A messenger of Hope comes every night to me | N |
And offers for short life eternal liberty | N |
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He comes with western winds with evening's wandering airs | Q |
With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars | R |
Winds take a pensive tone and stars a tender fire | S |
And visions rise and change that kill me with desire | S |
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Desire for nothing known in my maturer years | T |
When Joy grew mad with awe at counting future tears | Q |
When if my spirit's sky was full of flashes warm | U |
I knew not whence they came from sun or thunder storm | U |
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But first a hush of peace a soundless calm descends | V |
The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends | V |
Mute music soothes my breast unuttered harmony | N |
That I could never dream till Earth was lost to me | N |
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Then dawns the Invisible the Unseen its truth reveals | W |
My outward sense is gone my inward essence feels | W |
Its wings are almost free its home its harbour found | X |
Measuring the gulph it stoops and dares the final bound | X |
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Oh dreadful is the check intense the agony | N |
When the ear begins to hear and the eye begins to see | N |
When the pulse begins to throb the brain to think again | Y |
The soul to feel the flesh and the flesh to feel the chain | Z |
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Yet I would lose no sting would wish no torture less | A2 |
The more that anguish racks the earlier it will bless | A2 |
And robed in fires of hell or bright with heavenly shine | B2 |
If it but herald death the vision is divine | B2 |
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She ceased to speak and we unanswering turned to go | C2 |
We had no further power to work the captive woe | C2 |
Her cheek her gleaming eye declared that man had given | D2 |
A sentence unapproved and overruled by Heaven | D2 |
Emily Jane Bronta<<
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