Ode On Venice Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBCC DDEDFFDGDHIGGHJGKKKL MNMNOOPQPQQRSTTQQRSU VVWWWWXXYY AZA2ZB2A2C2C2 WWD2E2E2F2WWF2G2G2WW EEH2I2J2K2J2K2L2L2SS L2SL2SWWWL2YL2M2WW AWL2WL2L2N2L2N2WWO2L 2L2O2L2L2P2P2D2WD2D2 D2WQ2R2S2R2S2ES2T2EJ JL2L2L2JL2WWEL2U2U2L 2E2E2DWWDWWJ2DL2L2WI | 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 turn'd 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 | 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 | L |
Of cheerful creatures whose most sinful deeds | M |
Were but the overbeating of the heart | N |
And flow of too much happiness which needs | M |
The aid of age to turn its course apart | N |
From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood | O |
Of sweet sensations battling with the blood | O |
But these are better than the gloomy errors | P |
The weeds of nations in their last decay | Q |
When Vice walks forth with her unsoften'd terrors | P |
And Mirth is madness and but smiles to slay | Q |
And Hope is nothing but a false delay | Q |
The sick man's lightning half an hour ere death | R |
When Faintness the last mortal birth of Pain | S |
And apathy of limb the dull beginning | T |
Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning | T |
Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away | Q |
Yet so relieving the o'er tortured clay | Q |
To him appears renewal of his breath | R |
And freedom the mere numbness of his chain | S |
And then he talks of life and how again | U |
He feels his spirit soaring albeit weak | V |
And of the fresher air which he would seek | V |
And as he whispers knows not that he gasps | W |
That his thin finger feels not what it clasps | W |
And so the film comes o'er him and the dizzy | W |
Chamber swims round and round and shadows busy | W |
At which he vainly catches flit and gleam | X |
Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream | X |
And all is ice and blackness and the earth | Y |
That which it was the moment ere our birth | Y |
- | |
II | A |
There is no hope for nations Search the page | Z |
Of many thousand years the daily scene | A2 |
The flow and ebb of each recurring age | Z |
The everlasting to be which hath been | B2 |
Hath taught us nought or little still we lean | A2 |
On things that rot beneath our weight and wear | C2 |
Our strength away in wrestling with the air | C2 |
- | |
For 'tis our nature strikes us down the beasts | W |
Slaughter 'd in hourly hecatombs for feasts | W |
Are of as high an order they must go | D2 |
Even where their driver goads them though to slaughter | E2 |
Ye men who pour your blood for kings as water | E2 |
What have they given your children in return | F2 |
A heritage of servitude and woes | W |
A blindfold bondage where your hire is blows | W |
What do not yet the red hot ploughshares burn | F2 |
O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal | G2 |
And deem this proof of loyalty the real | G2 |
Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars | W |
And glorying as you tread the glowing bars | W |
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 | H2 |
Admire and sigh and then succumb and bleed | I2 |
Save the few spirits who despite of all | J2 |
And worse than all the sudden crimes engender'd | K2 |
By the down thundering of the prison wall | J2 |
And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tender'd | K2 |
Gushing from Freedom's fountains when the crowd | L2 |
Madden'd with centuries of drought are loud | L2 |
And trample on each other to obtain | S |
The cup which brings oblivion of a chain | S |
Heavy and sore in which long yoked they plough'd | L2 |
The sand or if there sprung the yellow grain | S |
'Twos not for them their necks were too much how'd | L2 |
And their dead palates chew'd the cud of pain | S |
Yes the few spirits who despite of deeds | W |
Which they abhor confound not with the cause | W |
Those momentary starts from Nature's laws | W |
Which like the pestilence and earthquake smite | L2 |
But for a term then pass and leave the earth | Y |
With all her seasons to repair the blight | L2 |
With a few summers and again put forth | M2 |
Cities and generations fair when free | W |
For Tyranny there blooms no bud for thee | W |
- | |
III | A |
Glory and Empire once upon these towers | W |
With Freedom godlike Triad how ye sate | L2 |
The league of mightiest nations in those hours | W |
When Venice was an envy might abate | L2 |
But did not quench her spirit in her fate | L2 |
All were enwrapp'd the feasted monarchs knew | N2 |
And loved their hostess nor could learn to hate | L2 |
Although they humbled with the kingly few | N2 |
The many felt for from all days and climes | W |
She was the voyager's worship even her crimes | W |
Were of the softer order born of Love | O2 |
She drank no blood nor fatten'd on the dead | L2 |
But gladden'd where her harmless conquests spread | L2 |
For these restored the Cross that from above | O2 |
Hallow'd her sheltering banners which incessant | L2 |
Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent | L2 |
Which if it waned and dwindled Earth may thank | P2 |
The city it has clothed in chains which clank | P2 |
Now creaking in the ears of those who owe | D2 |
The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles | W |
Yet she but shares with them a common woe | D2 |
And call'd the 'kingdom' of a conquering foe | D2 |
But knows what all and most of all we know | D2 |
With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles | W |
The name of Commonwealth is past and gone | Q2 |
O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe | R2 |
Venice is crush'd and Holland deigns to own | S2 |
A sceptre and endures the purple robe | R2 |
If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone | S2 |
His chainless mountains 'tis but for a time | E |
For tyranny of late is cunning grown | S2 |
And in its own good season tramples down | T2 |
The sparkles of our ashes One great clime | E |
Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean | J |
Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion | J |
Of Freedom which their fathers fought for and | L2 |
Bequeath'd a heritage of heart and hand | L2 |
And proud distinction from each other land | L2 |
Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion | J |
As if his senseless sceptre were a wand | L2 |
Full of the magic of exploded science | W |
Still one great clime in full and free de fiance | W |
Yet rears her crest unconquer'd and sublime | E |
Above the far Atlantic She has taught | L2 |
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 | L2 |
Rights cheaply earn'd with blood Stilt still for ever | E2 |
Better though each man's life blood were a river | E2 |
That it should flow and overflow than creep | D |
Through thousand lazy channels in our veins | W |
Damm'd like the dull canal with locks and chains | W |
And moving as a sick man in his sleep | D |
Three paces and then faltering better be | W |
Where the extinguish'd Spartans still are free | W |
In their proud charnel of Thermopylae | J2 |
Than stagnate in our marsh or o'er the deep | D |
Fly and one current to the ocean add | L2 |
One spirit to the souls our fathers had | L2 |
One freeman more America to thee | W |
George Gordon Byron
(1)
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