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 2D2D2DVVDVVI2DK2K2V| I | A |
| - | |
| 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 |
| - | |
| II | A |
| - | |
| 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 |
| - | |
| III | A |
| - | |
| 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 |
| - | |
| IV | C2 |
| - | |
| 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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Ode On Venice[234] is a poem by George Gordon Byron. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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