Napoleon Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCDCDEFFEBDDDDDDBD A DDDDDDDGDGDDHIDIJDED EKKDLMLDMDDDDDDNDDOD DNONLLD A DPDPDDDLOQODPLLLQDDL DLRBOBOLLLRLLLLLLNLN RRL O ODDODLDLDSLLLDSTLTDL DUDULLLLDDDDVVDWDDWX DXDDW O DDDRYRRRY DZDZDDA2B2D O DDDDODLLLOLLLDDLC2| I | A |
| - | |
| Cannon his name | B |
| Cannon his voice he came | B |
| Who heard of him heard shaken hills | C |
| An earth at quake to quiet stamped | D |
| Who looked on him beheld the will of wills | C |
| The driver of wild flocks where lions ramped | D |
| Beheld War's liveries flee him like lumped grass | E |
| Nid nod to ground beneath the cuffing storm | F |
| While laurelled over his Imperial form | F |
| Forth from her bearded tube of lacquey brass | E |
| Reverberant notes and long blew volant Fame | B |
| Incarnate Victory Power manifest | D |
| Infernal or God given to mankind | D |
| On the quenched volcano's cusp did he take stand | D |
| A conquering army's height above the land | D |
| Which calls that army offspring of its breast | D |
| And sees it mid the starry camps enshrined | D |
| His eye the cannon's flame | B |
| The cannon's cave his mind | D |
| - | |
| II | A |
| - | |
| To weld the nation in a name of dread | D |
| And scatter carrion flies off wounds unhealed | D |
| The Necessitated came as comes from out | D |
| Electric ebon lightning's javelin head | D |
| Threatening agitation in the revealed | D |
| Founts of our being terrible with doubt | D |
| With radiance restorative At one stride | D |
| Athwart the Law he stood for sovereign sway | G |
| That Soliform made featureless beside | D |
| His brilliancy who neighboured vapour they | G |
| Vapour what postured statues barred his tread | D |
| On high in amphitheatre field on field | D |
| Italian Egyptian Austrian | H |
| Far heard and of the carnage discord clear | I |
| Bells of his escalading triumphs pealed | D |
| In crashes on a choral chant severe | I |
| Heraldic of the authentic Charlemagne | J |
| Globe sceptre sword to enfold to rule to smite | D |
| Make unity of the mass | E |
| Coherent or refractory by his might | D |
| - | |
| Forth from her bearded tube of lacquey brass | E |
| Fame blew and tuned the jangles bent the knees | K |
| Rebellious or submissive his decrees | K |
| Were thunder in those heavens and compelled | D |
| Such as disordered earth eclipsed of stars | L |
| Endures for sign of Order's calm return | M |
| Whereunto she is vowed and his wreckage spars | L |
| His harried ships old riotous Ocean lifts alight | D |
| Subdued to splendour in his delirant churn | M |
| Glory suffused the accordant quelled | D |
| By magic of high sovereignty revolt | D |
| And he the reader of men himself unread | D |
| The name of hope the name of dread | D |
| Bloom of the coming years or blight | D |
| An arm to hurl the bolt | D |
| With aim Olympian bore | N |
| Likeness to Godhead Whither his flashes hied | D |
| Hosts fell what he constructed held rock fast | D |
| So did earth's abjects deem of him that built and clove | O |
| Torch on imagination beams he cast | D |
| Whereat they hailed him deified | D |
| If less than an eagle speeding Jove than Vulcan more | N |
| Or it might be a Vulcan Jove | O |
| Europe for smithy Europe's floor | N |
| Lurid with sparks in evanescent showers | L |
| Loud echo clap of hammers at all hours | L |
| Our skies the reflex of its furnace blast | D |
| - | |
| III | A |
| - | |
| On him the long enchained released | D |
| For bride of the miracle day up the midway blue | P |
| She from her heavenly lover fallen to serve for feast | D |
| Of rancours and raw hungers she the untrue | P |
| Yet pitiable not despicable gazed | D |
| Fawning her body bent she gazed | D |
| With eyes the moonstone portals to her heart | D |
| Eyes magnifying through hysteric tears | L |
| This apparition ghostly for belief | O |
| Demoniac or divine but sole | Q |
| Over earth's mightiest written Chief | O |
| Earth's chosen crowned unchallengeable upstart | D |
| The trumpet word to awake transform renew | P |
| The arbiter of circumstance | L |
| High above limitations as the spheres | L |
| Nor ever had heroical Romance | L |
| Never ensanguined History's lengthened scroll | Q |
| Shown fulminant to shoot the levin dart | D |
| Terrific as this man by whom upraised | D |
| Aggrandized and begemmed she outstripped her peers | L |
| Like midnight's levying brazier beacon blazed | D |
| Defiant to the world a rally for her sons | L |
| Day of the darkness this man's mate by him | R |
| Cannon his name | B |
| Rescued from vivisectionist and knave | O |
| Her body's dominators and her shame | B |
| By him with the rivers of ranked battalions brave | O |
| Past mortal girt a march of swords and guns | L |
| Incessant his proved warriors loaded dice | L |
| He flung on the crested board where chilly Fears | L |
| Behold the Reaper's ground Death sitting grim | R |
| Awatch for his predestined ones | L |
| Mid shrieks and torrent hooves but these | L |
| Inebriate of his inevitable device | L |
| Hail it their hero's wood of lustrous laurel trees | L |
| Blossom and fruit of fresh Hesperides | L |
| The boiling life blood in their cheers | L |
| Unequalled since the world was man they pour | N |
| A spiky girdle round her these her sons | L |
| His cataracts at smooth holiday soon to roar | N |
| Obstruction shattered at his will or whim | R |
| Kind to her ear as quiring Cherubim | R |
| And trampling earth like scornful mastodons | L |
| - | |
| IV | O |
| - | |
| The flood that swept her to be slave | O |
| Adoring under thought of being his mate | D |
| These were and unto the visibly unexcelled | D |
| As much of heart as abjects can she gave | O |
| Or what of heart the body bears for freight | D |
| When Majesty apparent overawes | L |
| By the flash of his ascending deeds upheld | D |
| Which let not feminine pride in him have pause | L |
| To question where the nobler pride rebelled | D |
| She read the hieroglyphic on his brow | S |
| Felt his firm hand to wield the giant's mace | L |
| Herself whirled upward in an eagle's claws | L |
| Past recollection of her earthly place | L |
| And if cold Reason pressed her called him Fate | D |
| Offering abashed the servile woman's vow | S |
| Delirium was her virtue when the look | T |
| At fettered wrists and violated laws | L |
| Faith in a rectitude Supernal shook | T |
| Till worship of him shone as her last rational state | D |
| The slave's apology for gemmed disgrace | L |
| Far in her mind that leap from earth to the ghost | D |
| Midway on high or felt as a troubled pool | U |
| Or as a broken sleep that hunts a dream half lost | D |
| Arrested and rebuked by the common school | U |
| Of daily things for truancy She could rejoice | L |
| To know with wakeful eyeballs Violence | L |
| Her crowned possessor and on every sense | L |
| Incumbent Fact Imperial Fact her choice | L |
| In scorn of barren visions aims at a glassy void | D |
| Who sprang for Liberty once found slavery sweet | D |
| And Tyranny on alert subservience buoyed | D |
| Spurred a blood mare immeasureably fleet | D |
| To shoot the transient leagues in a passing wink | V |
| Prompt for the glorious bound at the fanged abyss's brink | V |
| Scarce felt she that she bled when battle scored | D |
| On riddled flags the further conjured line | W |
| From off the meteor gleam of his waved sword | D |
| Reflected bright in permanence she bled | D |
| As the Bacchante spills her challengeing wine | W |
| With whirl o' the cup before the kiss to lip | X |
| And bade drudge History in his footprints tread | D |
| For pride of sword strokes o'er slow penmanship | X |
| Each step of his a volume his sharp word | D |
| The shower of steel and lead | D |
| Or pastoral sunshine | W |
| - | |
| V | O |
| - | |
| Persistent through the brazen chorus round | D |
| His thunderous footsteps on the foeman's ground | D |
| A broken carol of wild notes was heard | D |
| As when an ailing infant wails a dream | R |
| Strange in familiarity it rang | Y |
| And now along the dark blue vault might seem | R |
| Winged migratories having but heaven for home | R |
| Now the lone sea bird's cry down shocks of foam | R |
| Beneath a ruthless paw the captive's pang | Y |
| - | |
| It sang the gift that comes from God | D |
| To mind of man as air to lung | Z |
| So through her days of under sod | D |
| Her faith unto her heart had sung | Z |
| Like bedded seed by frozen clod | D |
| With view of wide armed heaven and buds at burst | D |
| And midway up Earth's fluttering little lyre | A2 |
| Even for a glimpse for even a hope in chained desire | B2 |
| The vision of it watered thirst | D |
| - | |
| VI | O |
| - | |
| But whom those errant moans accused | D |
| As Liberty's murderous mother cried accursed | D |
| France blew to deafness for a space she mused | D |
| She smoothed a startled look and sought | D |
| From treasuries of the adoring slave | O |
| Her surest way to strangle thought | D |
| Picturing her dread lord decree advance | L |
| Into the enemy's land artillery bayonet lance | L |
| His ordering fingers point the dial's to time their ranks | L |
| Himself the black storm cloud the tempest's bayonet glaive | O |
| Like foam heads of a loosened freshet bursting banks | L |
| By mount and fort they thread to swamp the sluggard plains | L |
| Shines his gold laurel sun or cloak connivent rains | L |
| They press to where the hosts in line and square throng mute | D |
| He watchful of their form the Audacious the Astute | D |
| Eagle to grip the field to work his craftiest fox | L |
| From his brief signal | C2 |
George Meredith
(1)
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