The Prisoner. A Fragment Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDDEE FFG HHII JJK LIMM NNOO PPQ IIOO RST URVV WWOO XXYY OOZA2 B2C2D2 B2B2E2E2 T F2In 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 dare not say me nay the hinges harshly turn | C |
'Our guests are darkly lodged ' I whispered gazing through | D |
The vault whose grated eye showed heaven more grey than blue | D |
This was when glad spring laughed in awaking pride | E |
'Aye darkly lodged enough ' returned my sullen guide | E |
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Then God forgive my youth forgive my careless tongue | F |
I scoffed as the chill chains on the damp flagstones rung | F |
'Confined in triple walls art thou so much to fear | G |
That we must bind thee down and clench thy fetters here ' | - |
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The captive raised her face it was as soft and mild | H |
As sculptured marble saint or slumbering unweaned 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 ' | - |
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Hoarse laughed the jailor grim 'Shall I be won to hear | L |
Dost think fond dreaming wretch that I shall grant thy prayer | I |
Or better still wilt melt my master's heart with groans | M |
Ah sooner might the sun thaw down these granite stones | M |
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'My master's voice is low his aspect bland and kind | N |
But hard as hardest flint the soul that lurks behind | N |
And I am rough and rude yet not more rough to see | O |
Than is the hidden ghost which has its home in me | O |
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About her lips there played a smile of almost scorn | P |
'My friend ' she gently said 'you have not heard me mourn | P |
When you my parents' lives my lost life can restore | Q |
Then may I weep and sue but never Friend before ' | - |
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'Yet tell them Julian all I am not doomed to wear | I |
Year after year in gloom and desolate despair | I |
A messenger of Hope comes every night to me | O |
And offers for short life eternal liberty | O |
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He comes with western winds with evening's wandering airs | R |
With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars | S |
Winds take a pensive tone and stars a tender fire And visions rise and change which kill me with desire | T |
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'Desire for nothing known in my maturer years | U |
When joy grew mad with awe at counting future tears | R |
When if my spirit's sky was full of flashes warm | V |
I knew not whence they came from sun or thunderstorm | V |
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'But first a hush of peace a soundless calm descends | W |
The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends | W |
Mute music soothes my breast unuttered harmony | O |
That I could never dream till earth was lost to me | O |
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'Then dawns the Invisible the Unseen its truth reveals | X |
My outward sense is gone my inward essence feels | X |
Its wings are almost free its home its harbour found | Y |
Measuring the gulf it stoops and dares the final bound | Y |
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'Oh dreadful is the check intense the agony | O |
When the ear begins to hear and the eye begins to see | O |
When the pulse begins to throb the brain to think again | Z |
The soul to feel the flesh and the flesh to feel the chain | A2 |
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'Yet I would lose no sting would wish no torture less go | B2 |
The more that anguish racks the earlier it will bless | C2 |
And robed in fires of Hell or bright with heavenly shine | D2 |
If it but herald Death the vision is divine ' | - |
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She ceased to speak and we unanswering turned to go | B2 |
We had no further power to work the captive woe | B2 |
Her cheek he gleaming eye declared that man had given | E2 |
A sentence unapproved and overruled by Heaven | E2 |
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October | T |
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This poem is part of a larger Gondal poem which Emily revised for publication in She cut lines and She added the concluding stanza which starts with 'She ceased to speak ' The original title of the poem is 'Julian M and A G Rochelle ' the names of two lovers in the Gondal saga | F2 |
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