Vae Victis Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABABBCBCC DEDEEFEFF GHGHHIHII JKJKKLKLL MNMNNONOO LPLPPQRQQ STSUTVTVW

Beside the placid sea that mirrored herA
With the old glory of dawn that cannot dieB
The sleeping city began to moan and stirA
As one that fain from an ill dream would flyB
Yet more she feared the daylight bringing nighB
Such dreams as know not sunrise soon or lateC
Visions of honour lost and power gone byB
Of loyal valour betrayed by factious hateC
And craven sloth that shrank from the labour of forging fateC
-
They knew and knew not this bewildered crowdD
That up her streets in silence hurrying passedE
What manner of death should make their anguish loudD
What corpse across the funeral pyre be castE
For none had spoken it only gathering fastE
As darkness gathers at noon in the sun's eclipseF
A shadow of doom enfolded them vague and vastE
And a cry was heard unfathered of earthly lipsF
What of the ships O Carthage Carthage what of the shipsF
-
They reached the wall and nowise strange it seemedG
To find the gates unguarded and open wideH
They climbed the shoulder and meet enough they deemedG
The black that shrouded the seaward rampart's sideH
And veiled in drooping gloom the turrets' prideH
But this was nought for suddenly down the slopeI
They saw the harbour and sense within them diedH
Keel nor mast was there rudder nor ropeI
It lay like a sea hawk's eyry spoiled of life and hopeI
-
Beyond where dawn was a glittering carpet rolledJ
From sky to shore on level and endless seasK
Hardly their eyes discerned in a dazzle of goldJ
That here in fifties yonder in twos and threesK
The ships they sought like a swarm of drowning beesK
By a wanton gust on the pool of a mill dam hurledL
Floated forsaken of life giving tide and breezeK
Their oars broken their sails for ever furledL
For ever deserted the bulwarks that guarded the wealth of the worldL
-
A moment yet with breathing quickly drawnM
And hands agrip the Carthaginian folkN
Stared in the bright untroubled face of dawnM
And strove with vehement heaped denial to chokeN
Their sure surmise of fate's impending strokeN
Vainly for even now beneath their gazeO
A thousand delicate spires of distant smokeN
Reddened the disc of the sun with a stealthy hazeO
And the smouldering grief of a nation burst with the kindling blazeO
-
O dying Carthage so their passion ravedL
Would nought but these the conqueror's hate assuageP
If these be taken how may the land be savedL
Whose meat and drink was empire age by ageP
And bitter memory cursed with idle rageP
The greed that coveted gold beyond renownQ
The feeble hearts that feared their heritageR
The hands that cast the sea kings' sceptre downQ
And left to alien brows their famed ancestral crownQ
-
The endless noon the endless evening throughS
All other needs forgetting great or smallT
They drank despair with thirst whose torment grewS
As the hours died beneath that stifling pallU
At last they saw the fires to blackness fallT
One after one and slowly turned them homeV
A little longer yet their own to callT
A city enslaved and wear the bonds of RomeV
With weary hearts foreboding all the woe to comeW

Henry Newbolt



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