The Island: Canto Ii. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFEEEGEHIBBCCJKB B ALLMMNNOOPPBBQRSTUUB BEEEEAAEEVVII AWWEEEPXXYYEE AZZA2A2EEBBAAB2B2AA AC2C2BBAAD2E2AAEEF2G 2H2H2NNEEI2I2EE AI2I2CAJ2J2AAK2K2EEE 2E2I2AAAAA AAAJ2J2L2L2I2I2M2M2Y YPPAAAAI2I2I2I2AAI2I 2AAI2I2N2N2AAI2I2O2O 2QQ AAAI2I2AAJ2J2I2I2E2P 2I2I2P2P2AAQ2R2I | A |
How pleasant were the songs of Toobonai | B |
When Summer's Sun went down the coral bay | C |
Come let us to the islet's softest shade | D |
And hear the warbling birds I the damsels said | E |
The wood dove from the forest depth shall coo | F |
Like voices of the Gods from Bolotoo | E |
We'll cull the flowers that grow above the dead | E |
For these most bloom where rests the warrior's head | E |
And we will sit in Twilight's face and see | G |
The sweet Moon glancing through the Tooa tree to | E |
The lofty accents of whose sighing bough | H |
Shall sadly please us as we lean below | I |
Or climb the steep and view the surf in vain | B |
Wrestle with rocky giants o'er the main | B |
Which spurn in columns back the baffled spray | C |
How beautiful are these how happy they | C |
Who from the toil and tumult of their lives | J |
Steal to look down where nought but Ocean strives | K |
Even He too loves at times the blue lagoon | B |
And smooths his ruffled mane beneath the Moon | B |
- | |
II | A |
Yes from the sepulchre we'll gather flowers | L |
Then feast like spirits in their promised bowers | L |
Then plunge and revel in the rolling surf | M |
Then lay our limbs along the tender turf | M |
And wet and shining from the sportive toil | N |
Anoint our bodies with the fragrant oil | N |
And plait our garlands gathered from the grave | O |
And wear the wreaths that sprung from out the brave | O |
But lo I night comes the Mooa woos us back | P |
The sound of mats are heard along our track | P |
Anon the torchlight dance shall fling its sheen | B |
In flashing mazes o'er the Marly's green | B |
And we too will be there we too recall | Q |
The memory bright with many a festival | R |
Ere Fiji blew the shell of war when foes | S |
For the first time were wafted in canoes | T |
Alas for them the flower of manhood bleeds | U |
Alas for them our fields are rank with weeds | U |
Forgotten is the rapture or unknown | B |
Of wandering with the Moon and Love alone | B |
But be it so they taught us how to wield | E |
The club and rain our arrows o'er the field | E |
Now let them reap the harvest of their art | E |
But feast to night to morrow we depart | E |
Strike up the dance the Cava bowl fill high | A |
Drain every drop to morrow we may die | A |
In summer garments be our limbs arrayed | E |
Around our waists the Tappa's white displayed | E |
Thick wreaths shall form our coronal like Spring's | V |
And round our necks shall glance the Hooni strings | V |
So shall their brighter hues contrast the glow | I |
Of the dusk bosoms that beat high below | I |
- | |
III | A |
But now the dance is o'er yet stay awhile | W |
Ah pause nor yet put out the social smile | W |
To morrow for the Mooa we depart | E |
But not to night to night is for the heart | E |
Again bestow the wreaths we gently woo | E |
Ye young Enchantresses of gay Licoo | P |
How lovely are your forms how every sense | X |
Bows to your beauties softened but intense | X |
Like to the flowers on Mataloco's steep | Y |
Which fling their fragrance far athwart the deep | Y |
We too will see Licoo but oh my heart | E |
What do I say to morrow we depart | E |
- | |
IV | A |
Thus rose a song the harmony of times | Z |
Before the winds blew Europe o'er these climes | Z |
True they had vices such are Nature's growth | A2 |
But only the barbarian's we have both | A2 |
The sordor of civilisation mixed | E |
With all the savage which Man's fall hath fixed | E |
Who hath not seen Dissimulation's reign | B |
The prayers of Abel linked to deeds of Cain | B |
Who such would see may from his lattice view | A |
The Old World more degraded than the New | A |
Now new no more save where Columbia rears | B2 |
Twin giants born by Freedom to her spheres | B2 |
Where Chimborazo over air earth wave | A |
Glares with his Titan eye and sees no slave | A |
- | |
V | A |
Such was this ditty of Tradition's days | C2 |
Which to the dead a lingering fame conveys | C2 |
In song where Fame as yet hath left no sign | B |
Beyond the sound whose charm is half divine | B |
Which leaves no record to the sceptic eye | A |
But yields young History all to Harmony | A |
A boy Achilles with the Centaur's lyre | D2 |
In hand to teach him to surpass his sire | E2 |
For one long cherished ballad's simple stave | A |
Rung from the rock or mingled with the wave | A |
Or from the bubbling streamlet's grassy side | E |
Or gathering mountain echoes as they glide | E |
Hath greater power o'er each true heart and ear | F2 |
Than all the columns Conquest's minions rear | G2 |
Invites when Hieroglyphics are a theme | H2 |
For sages' labours or the student's dream | H2 |
Attracts when History's volumes are a toil | N |
The first the freshest bud of Feeling's soil | N |
Such was this rude rhyme rhyme is of the rude | E |
But such inspired the Norseman's solitude | E |
Who came and conquered such wherever rise | I2 |
Lands which no foes destroy or civilise | I2 |
Exist and what can our accomplished art | E |
Of verse do more than reach the awakened heart | E |
- | |
VI | A |
And sweetly now those untaught melodies | I2 |
Broke the luxurious silence of the skies | I2 |
The sweet siesta of a summer day | C |
The tropic afternoon of Toobonai | A |
When every flower was bloom and air was balm | J2 |
And the first breath began to stir the palm | J2 |
The first yet voiceless wind to urge the wave | A |
All gently to refresh the thirsty cave | A |
Where sat the Songstress with the stranger boy | K2 |
Who taught her Passion's desolating joy | K2 |
Too powerful over every heart but most | E |
O'er those who know not how it may be lost | E |
O'er those who burning in the new born fire | E2 |
Like martyrs revel in their funeral pyre | E2 |
With such devotion to their ecstacy | I2 |
That Life knows no such rapture as to die | A |
And die they do for earthly life has nought | A |
Matched with that burst of Nature even in thought | A |
And all our dreams of better life above | A |
But close in one eternal gush of Love | A |
- | |
VII | A |
There sat the gentle savage of the wild | A |
In growth a woman though in years a child | A |
As childhood dates within our colder clime | J2 |
Where nought is ripened rapidly save crime | J2 |
The infant of an infant world as pure | L2 |
From Nature lovely warm and premature | L2 |
Dusky like night but night with all her stars | I2 |
Or cavern sparkling with its native spars | I2 |
With eyes that were a language and a spell | M2 |
A form like Aphrodite's in her shell | M2 |
With all her loves around her on the deep | Y |
Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep | Y |
Yet full of life for through her tropic cheek | P |
The blush would make its way and all but speak | P |
The sun born blood suffused her neck and threw | A |
O'er her clear nut brown skin a lucid hue | A |
Like coral reddening through the darkened wave | A |
Which draws the diver to the crimson cave | A |
Such was this daughter of the southern seas | I2 |
Herself a billow in her energies | I2 |
To bear the bark of others' happiness | I2 |
Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less | I2 |
Her wild and warm yet faithful bosom knew | A |
No joy like what it gave her hopes ne'er drew | A |
Aught from Experience that chill touchstone whose | I2 |
Sad proof reduces all things from their hues | I2 |
She feared no ill because she knew it not | A |
Or what she knew was soon too soon forgot | A |
Her smiles and tears had passed as light winds pass | I2 |
O'er lakes to ruffle not destroy their glass | I2 |
Whose depths unsearched and fountains from the hill | N2 |
Restore their surface in itself so still | N2 |
Until the Earthquake tear the Naiad's cave | A |
Root up the spring and trample on the wave | A |
And crush the living waters to a mass | I2 |
The amphibious desert of the dank morass | I2 |
And must their fate be hers The eternal change | O2 |
But grasps Humanity with quicker range | O2 |
And they who fall but fall as worlds will fall | Q |
To rise if just a Spirit o'er them all | Q |
- | |
VIII | A |
And who is he the blue eyed northern child | A |
Of isles more known to man but scarce less wild | A |
The fair haired offspring of the Hebrides | I2 |
Where roars the Pentland with its whirling seas | I2 |
Rocked in his cradle by the roaring wind | A |
The tempest born in body and in mind | A |
His young eyes opening on the ocean foam | J2 |
Had from that moment deemed the deep his home | J2 |
The giant comrade of his pensive moods | I2 |
The sharer of his craggy solitudes | I2 |
The only Mentor of his youth where'er | E2 |
His bark was borne the sport of wave and air | P2 |
A careless thing who placed his choice in chance | I2 |
Nursed by the legends of his land's romance | I2 |
Eager to hope but not less firm to bear | P2 |
Acquainted with all feelings save despair | P2 |
Placed in the Arab's clime he would have been | A |
As bold a rover as the sands have seen | A |
And braved their thirst with as enduring lip | Q2 |
As Ishmael | R2 |
George Gordon Byron
(1)
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