Ode On Venice[234] Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCCDDEDFFDGDHIGGHJ GKKKJLMLMNNOPOPPQRSS PPQRTUUVVVVWWXX A YZYA2ZB2B2VVC2D2D2E2 VVE2F2F2VVEEG2H2I2J2 I2J2K2K2RRK2RK2RVVVK 2XK2L2VV A VK2VK2K2M2K2M2VVN2K2 K2N2K2K2O2O2C2VC2C2C 2V C2 P2Q2R2Q2R2ER2S2ET2T2 K2K2K2T2K2VVEK2U2U2K 2D2D2DVVDVVI2DK2K2VI | A |
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Oh Venice Venice when thy marble walls | B |
Are level with the waters there shall be | C |
A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls | B |
A loud lament along the sweeping sea | C |
If I a northern wanderer weep for thee | C |
What should thy sons do anything but weep | D |
And yet they only murmur in their sleep | D |
In contrast with their fathers as the slime | E |
The dull green ooze of the receding deep | D |
Is with the dashing of the spring tide foam | F |
That drives the sailor shipless to his home | F |
Are they to those that were and thus they creep | D |
Crouching and crab like through their sapping streets | G |
Oh agony that centuries should reap | D |
No mellower harvest Thirteen hundred years | H |
Of wealth and glory turned to dust and tears | I |
And every monument the stranger meets | G |
Church palace pillar as a mourner greets | G |
And even the Lion all subdued appears | H |
And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum | J |
With dull and daily dissonance repeats | G |
The echo of thy Tyrant's voice along | K |
The soft waves once all musical to song | K |
That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng | K |
Of gondolas and to the busy hum | J |
Of cheerful creatures whose most sinful deeds | L |
Were but the overbeating of the heart | M |
And flow of too much happiness which needs | L |
The aid of age to turn its course apart | M |
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood | N |
Of sweet sensations battling with the blood | N |
But these are better than the gloomy errors | O |
The weeds of nations in their last decay | P |
When Vice walks forth with her unsoftened terrors | O |
And Mirth is madness and but smiles to slay | P |
And Hope is nothing but a false delay | P |
The sick man's lightning half an hour ere Death | Q |
When Faintness the last mortal birth of Pain | R |
And apathy of limb the dull beginning | S |
Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning | S |
Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away | P |
Yet so relieving the o'er tortured clay | P |
To him appears renewal of his breath | Q |
And freedom the mere numbness of his chain | R |
And then he talks of Life and how again | T |
He feels his spirit soaring albeit weak | U |
And of the fresher air which he would seek | U |
And as he whispers knows not that he gasps | V |
That his thin finger feels not what it clasps | V |
And so the film comes o'er him and the dizzy | V |
Chamber swims round and round and shadows busy | V |
At which he vainly catches flit and gleam | W |
Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream | W |
And all is ice and blackness and the earth | X |
That which it was the moment ere our birth | X |
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II | A |
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There is no hope for nations Search the page | Y |
Of many thousand years the daily scene | Z |
The flow and ebb of each recurring age | Y |
The everlasting to be which hath been | A2 |
Hath taught us nought or little still we lean | Z |
On things that rot beneath our weight and wear | B2 |
Our strength away in wrestling with the air | B2 |
For't is our nature strikes us down the beasts | V |
Slaughtered in hourly hecatombs for feasts | V |
Are of as high an order they must go | C2 |
Even where their driver goads them though to slaughter | D2 |
Ye men who pour your blood for kings as water | D2 |
What have they given your children in return | E2 |
A heritage of servitude and woes | V |
A blindfold bondage where your hire is blows | V |
What do not yet the red hot ploughshares burn | E2 |
O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal | F2 |
And deem this proof of loyalty the real | F2 |
Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars | V |
And glorying as you tread the glowing bars | V |
All that your Sires have left you all that Time | E |
Bequeaths of free and History of sublime | E |
Spring from a different theme Ye see and read | G2 |
Admire and sigh and then succumb and bleed | H2 |
Save the few spirits who despite of all | I2 |
And worse than all the sudden crimes engendered | J2 |
By the down thundering of the prison wall | I2 |
And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tendered | J2 |
Gushing from Freedom's fountains when the crowd | K2 |
Maddened with centuries of drought are loud | K2 |
And trample on each other to obtain | R |
The cup which brings oblivion of a chain | R |
Heavy and sore in which long yoked they ploughed | K2 |
The sand or if there sprung the yellow grain | R |
'Twas not for them their necks were too much bowed | K2 |
And their dead palates chewed the cud of pain | R |
Yes the few spirits who despite of deeds | V |
Which they abhor confound not with the cause | V |
Those momentary starts from Nature's laws | V |
Which like the pestilence and earthquake smite | K2 |
But for a term then pass and leave the earth | X |
With all her seasons to repair the blight | K2 |
With a few summers and again put forth | L2 |
Cities and generations fair when free | V |
For Tyranny there blooms no bud for thee | V |
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III | A |
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Glory and Empire once upon these towers | V |
With Freedom godlike Triad how you sate | K2 |
The league of mightiest nations in those hours | V |
When Venice was an envy might abate | K2 |
But did not quench her spirit in her fate | K2 |
All were enwrapped the feasted monarchs knew | M2 |
And loved their hostess nor could learn to hate | K2 |
Although they humbled with the kingly few | M2 |
The many felt for from all days and climes | V |
She was the voyager's worship even her crimes | V |
Were of the softer order born of Love | N2 |
She drank no blood nor fattened on the dead | K2 |
But gladdened where her harmless conquests spread | K2 |
For these restored the Cross that from above | N2 |
Hallowed her sheltering banners which incessant | K2 |
Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent | K2 |
Which if it waned and dwindled Earth may thank | O2 |
The city it has clothed in chains which clank | O2 |
Now creaking in the ears of those who owe | C2 |
The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles | V |
Yet she but shares with them a common woe | C2 |
And called the kingdom of a conquering foe | C2 |
But knows what all and most of all we know | C2 |
With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles | V |
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IV | C2 |
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The name of Commonwealth is past and gone | P2 |
O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe | Q2 |
Venice is crushed and Holland deigns to own | R2 |
A sceptre and endures the purple robe | Q2 |
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone | R2 |
His chainless mountains 't is but for a time | E |
For Tyranny of late is cunning grown | R2 |
And in its own good season tramples down | S2 |
The sparkles of our ashes One great clime | E |
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean | T2 |
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion | T2 |
Of Freedom which their fathers fought for and | K2 |
Bequeathed a heritage of heart and hand | K2 |
And proud distinction from each other land | K2 |
Whose sons must bow them at a Monarch's motion | T2 |
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand | K2 |
Full of the magic of exploded science | V |
Still one great clime in full and free defiance | V |
Yet rears her crest unconquered and sublime | E |
Above the far Atlantic She has taught | K2 |
Her Esau brethren that the haughty flag | U2 |
The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag | U2 |
May strike to those whose red right hands have bought | K2 |
Rights cheaply earned with blood Still still for ever | D2 |
Better though each man's life blood were a river | D2 |
That it should flow and overflow than creep | D |
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins | V |
Dammed like the dull canal with locks and chains | V |
And moving as a sick man in his sleep | D |
Three paces and then faltering better be | V |
Where the extinguished Spartans still are free | V |
In their proud charnel of Thermopyl | I2 |
Than stagnate in our marsh or o'er the deep | D |
Fly and one current to the ocean add | K2 |
One spirit to the souls our fathers had | K2 |
One freeman more America to thee | V |
George Gordon Byron
(1)
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