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 DDDDODLLLOLLLDDLC2I | A |
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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 |
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II | A |
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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 |
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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 |
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III | A |
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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 |
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IV | O |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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
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