Orpheus Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDECCEFECCCEEGHIEJ CKEHLCCECCCKCCFCCMCF FCCCNCEOPECNEJEQRFCC CSOSONHNHECKCTEKUVEE KKEWCCXECCCECKVECCYL NCECVZCKA2CHLECCEB2Y GECKFCECCUKCCHKZEEZK HB2B2C2B2KCHCD2E2B2E HECECEEF2CG2CYCHH2H2 HB2B2I2CCJ2CCCCZUB2V VHORPHEUS | A |
LAUGHTER and dance and sounds of harp and lyre | B |
Piping of flutes singing of festal songs | C |
Ribbons of flame from flaunting torches dulled | D |
By the broad summer sunshine these had filled | E |
Since the high noon the pillared vestibules | C |
The peristyles and porches in the house | C |
Of the bride's father Maidens garlanded | E |
With rose and myrtle dedicate to Love | F |
Adorned with chaplets fresh the bride and veiled | E |
The shining head and wistful girlish face | C |
Ineffable sweetness of divided lips | C |
Large light of clear gray eyes low lucid brows | C |
White as a cloud beneath pale clustering gold | E |
When sunless skies uncertain twilight cast | E |
That makes a friend's face as an alien's strange | G |
Investing with a foreign mystery | H |
The dear green fields about our very home | I |
Then waiting stood the gilded chariot | E |
Before the porch and from the vine wreathed door | J |
Issued the white veiled bride while jocund youths | C |
And m nads followed her with dance and song | K |
She came with double glory for her lord | E |
Son of Apollo and Calliope | H |
Towered beside her beautiful in limb | L |
And feature as though formed to magic strains | C |
Like the B otian city that arose | C |
In airy structures to Amphion's lute | E |
The light serene shone from his brow and eyes | C |
Of one whose lofty thoughts keep consonance | C |
With the celestial music of the spheres | C |
His smile was fluent and his speech outsang | K |
The cadences of soft stringed instruments | C |
He to the chariot led Eurydice | C |
And these twain mounting with their paranymph | F |
Drove onward through the dusky twilit fields | C |
Preceded by the nymphs and singing youths | C |
And boys diffusing light and odors warm | M |
With flaming brands of aromatic woods | C |
And matrons bearing symbols of the life | F |
Of careful wives the distaff and the sieve | F |
And followed by the echoes of their songs | C |
The fragrance crushed from moist and trodden grass | C |
The blessing of the ever present gods | C |
Whom they invoked with earnest hymns and prayer | N |
From Orpheus' portico festooned with vines | C |
Issued a flood of rare ambrosial light | E |
As though Olympian portals stood ajar | O |
And Hymen radiant by his torch's flame | P |
Mystic with saffron vest and purple stood | E |
With hands munificent to greet and bless | C |
Ripe fruits were poured upon the married pair | N |
Alighting and the chariot wheels were burnt | E |
A token that the bride returned no more | J |
Unto her father's house With step resolved | E |
She crossed the threshold soft with flowers secure | Q |
That his heroic soul who guided her | R |
Was potent and alert to grace her life | F |
With noble outlines and ideal hues | C |
Uplifting it to equal height with his | C |
EPITHALAMIUM TO ZEUS | C |
Because thou art enthroned beyond our reach | S |
Behind the brightest and the farthest star | O |
And silence is as eloquent as speech | S |
To thee who knowest us for what we are | O |
We bring thee naught save brief and simple prayer | N |
Strong in its naked frank sincerity | H |
Send sacred joys of marriage to this pair | N |
With fertile increase and prosperity | H |
Three nymphs had met beneath an oak that cast | E |
Cool dappled shadow on the glowing grass | C |
And liquid gleam of the translucent brook | K |
The air was musical with frolic sounds | C |
Of feminine voices and of laughter blithe | T |
Patines of sunshine fell like mottled gold | E |
On the rose white of bright bare limbs and neck | K |
On flowing snowy mantles and again | U |
With sudden splendor on the gloriole | V |
Of warm rich hair The fairest nymph reclined | E |
Beneath the tree and leaned her yellow head | E |
With its crisp clustering rings against the trunk | K |
And dipped her pure feet in the colorless brook | K |
Stirring the ripples into circles wide | E |
With cool delicious plashings in the stream | W |
Her young companions lay upon the grass | C |
With indolent eyes half closed and parted lips | C |
Half smiling in the languor of the noon | X |
But suddenly these twain arising cried | E |
Startled and sharply 'Lo Eurydice | C |
Behold ' and she uplifting frightened eyes | C |
Saw a strange shepherd watching with bold glance | C |
Veiling their faces with their mantles light | E |
Her sisters fled swift footed with shrill cries | C |
Adown the meadow but her wet feet clung | K |
To the dry grasses and the earthy soil | V |
'Eurydice I love thee fear me not | E |
For I am Arist us with gray groves | C |
Of hoary olives and innumerous flocks | C |
And precious swarms of yellow vested bees ' | Y |
But she with sudden strength eluding him | L |
Sprang o'er the flowery turf with back blown hair | N |
And wing like garments shortened breath and face | C |
Kindled with shame and terror In her flight | E |
She ran through fatal flowers and tangled weeds | C |
And thick rank grass beside a stagnant pool | V |
When with a keen and breathless cry of pain | Z |
Abrupt she fell amidst the tall green reeds | C |
Then Arist us reached her as a snake | K |
Crept back in sinuous lines amidst the slime | A2 |
Desire was changed to pity when he saw | C |
The wounded dryad in her agony | H |
Strive vainly to escape repelling him | L |
With feeble arms 'Forgive me nymph ' he cried | E |
' I will not touch save with most reverent hands | C |
Thy sacred form But let me bear thee hence | C |
And soothe thy bruise with healing herbs 'Too late | E |
Leave me ' she sighed 'and lead thou Orpheus here | B2 |
That I may see him ere the daylight fails ' | Y |
He left her pale with suffering earth seemed strange | G |
Unto her eyes who knew she looked her last | E |
On level stretching meadows hazy hills | C |
And all the light and color of the sky | K |
Brief as a dream she saw her happy life | F |
Her father's face her mother's blessed eyes | C |
The hero who unheralded appeared | E |
And all was changed all things put forth a voice | C |
As in the season of the singing birds | C |
She looked around revived and saw again | U |
The lapsing river and abiding sky | K |
Across the sunny fields came Arist us | C |
With Orpheus following and after these | C |
Sad nymphs and heroes grave with sympathy | H |
Quite calm she lay and almost wished to die | K |
Before they reached her if the throbbing pain | Z |
Of limb and heart could only thus be stilled | E |
But Orpheus hastened to her side and mourned | E |
'Eurydice Eurydice Remain | Z |
For there is no delight of speech nor song | K |
Among the dead Will the gods jest with me | H |
And call this life which must forevermore | B2 |
Be but a void a hunger a desire | B2 |
A stretching out of empty hands to grasp | C2 |
What earth nor sea nor heaven will restore | B2 |
Is this the life that I conceived and sang | K |
Rich with all noble opportunities | C |
And beautiful realities ' But she | H |
'Brave Orpheus search thou not the eternal gods | C |
Surely they love us dearer than we know | D2 |
Do thou refrain for yet I hold my faith | E2 |
When I am gone thou still wilt have thy lyre | B2 |
Love it and cherish it is Fate's best gift | E |
And with death's clearer vision I can see | H |
That in all ages men will be upraised | E |
Nearer to gods through this than through aught else | C |
My death may but inspire a larger note | E |
A passionate cadence to thy strain which else | C |
Were not quite human and thus incomplete | E |
And with this thought I am content to die | E |
Cease not to sing to me when I am gone | F2 |
Thy voice will reach me in the farthest spheres | C |
Or wake me out of silence Now begin | G2 |
That I may float on those celestial waves | C |
Into the darkness as I oft have longed ' | Y |
ORPHEUS | C |
Once in a wild bright vision came to me | H |
Beautiful music luminous as morn | H2 |
An effluence of light and rapture born | H2 |
With eyes as full of splendor as the sea | H |
Dazzling as youth with pinions frail as air | B2 |
Yet potent to uplift and soar as prayer | B2 |
Again I see her cypress in her wreath | I2 |
Sad with all grave and tender mysteries | C |
Tears in her unimaginable eyes | C |
That look their first with wondering awe on Death | J2 |
Never again in all the after years | C |
Will her lips laugh with utter mirthfulness | C |
Nor the strange longing in her eyes grow less | C |
Nor any time dispel their mist of tears | C |
Yea with new numbers she completes her strain | Z |
A song unsung before by gods or men | U |
But she hath lost ah lost for evermore | B2 |
The ringing note of joy ineffable | V |
The high assurance proud that all is well | V |
The glad refrain t | H |
Emma Lazarus
(1)
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