Nightmare Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDED FGFH IJIJ KLKL MJMJ NOPO ACAC QRQR STTS| The silver and violet leopard of the night | A |
| Spotted with stars and smooth with silence sprang | B |
| And though three doors stood open the end of light | A |
| Closed like a trap and stillness was a clang | B |
| - | |
| Under the leopard sky of lurid stars | C |
| I strove with evil sleep the hot night long | D |
| Dreams dumb and swollen of triumphs without wars | E |
| Of tongueless trumpet and unanswering gong | D |
| - | |
| I saw a pale imperial pomp go by | F |
| Helmet and horn d mitre and heavy wreath | G |
| Their high strange ensigns hung upon the sky | F |
| And their great shields were like the doors of death | H |
| - | |
| Their mitres were as moving pyramids | I |
| And all their crowns as marching towers were tall | J |
| Their eyes were cold under their carven lids | I |
| And the same carven smile was on them all | J |
| - | |
| Over a paven plain that seemed unending | K |
| They passed unfaltering till it found an end | L |
| In one long shallow step and these descending | K |
| Fared forth anew as long away to wend | L |
| - | |
| I thought they travelled for a thousand years | M |
| And at the end was nothing for them all | J |
| For all that splendour of sceptres and of spears | M |
| But a new step another easy fall | J |
| - | |
| The smile of stone seemed but a little less | N |
| The load of silver but a little more | O |
| And ever was that terraced wilderness | P |
| And falling plain paved like a palace floor | O |
| - | |
| Rust red as gore crawled on their arms of might | A |
| And on their faces wrinkles and not scars | C |
| Till the dream suddenly ended noise and light | A |
| Loosened the tyranny of the tropic stars | C |
| - | |
| But over them like a subterranean sun | Q |
| I saw the sign of all the fiends that fell | R |
| And a wild voice cried Hasten and be done | Q |
| Is there no steepness in the stairs of hell | R |
| - | |
| He that returns He that remains the same | S |
| Turned the round real world His iron vice | T |
| Down the grey garden paths a bird called twice | T |
| And through three doors mysterious daylight came | S |
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
(1)
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