Flower-de-luce: Divina Commedia Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCBDCCBEFEFEF AGHHGGHHGIJKIJK ALIILLIILMNOPP QROORROORSFTSFT QUFFUUFFUUQFUQF QQUUQQUUQUFFUFF| I | A |
| Oft have I seen at some cathedral door | B |
| A laborer pausing in the dust and heat | C |
| Lay down his burden and with reverent feet | C |
| Enter and cross himself and on the floor | B |
| Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er | D |
| Far off the noises of the world retreat | C |
| The loud vociferations of the street | C |
| Become an undistinguishable roar | B |
| So as I enter here from day to day | E |
| And leave my burden at this minster gate | F |
| Kneeling in prayer and not ashamed to pray | E |
| The tumult of the time disconsolate | F |
| To inarticulate murmurs dies away | E |
| While the eternal ages watch and wait | F |
| - | |
| II | A |
| How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers | G |
| This crowd of statues in whose folded sleeves | H |
| Birds build their nests while canopied with leaves | H |
| Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers | G |
| And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers | G |
| But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves | H |
| Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves | H |
| And underneath the traitor Judas lowers | G |
| Ah from what agonies of heart and brain | I |
| What exultations trampling on despair | J |
| What tenderness what tears what hate of wrong | K |
| What passionate outcry of a soul in pain | I |
| Uprose this poem of the earth and air | J |
| This medieval miracle of song | K |
| - | |
| III | A |
| I enter and I see thee in the gloom | L |
| Of the long aisles O poet saturnine | I |
| And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine | I |
| The air is filled with some unknown perfume | L |
| The congregation of the dead make room | L |
| For thee to pass the votive tapers shine | I |
| Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine | I |
| The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb | L |
| From the confessionals I hear arise | M |
| Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies | N |
| And lamentations from the crypts below | O |
| And then a voice celestial that begins | P |
| With the pathetic words 'Although your sins | P |
| As scarlet be ' and ends with 'as the snow ' | - |
| - | |
| IV | Q |
| With snow white veil and garments as of flame | R |
| She stands before thee who so long ago | O |
| Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe | O |
| From which thy song and all its splendors came | R |
| And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name | R |
| The ice about thy heart melts as the snow | O |
| On mountain height and in swift overflow | O |
| Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame | R |
| Thou makest full confession and a gleam | S |
| As of the dawn on some dark forest cast | F |
| Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase | T |
| Lethe and Eunoe the remembered dream | S |
| And the forgotten sorrow bring at last | F |
| That perfect pardon which is perfect peace | T |
| - | |
| V | Q |
| I lift mine eyes and all the windows blaze | U |
| With forms of saints and holy men who died | F |
| Here martyred and hereafter glorified | F |
| And the great Rose upon its leaves displays | U |
| Christ's Triumph and the angelic roundelays | U |
| With splendor upon splendor multiplied | F |
| And Beatrice again at Dante's side | F |
| No more rebukes but smiles her words of praise | U |
| And then the organ sounds and unseen choirs | U |
| Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love | Q |
| And benedictions of the Holy Ghost | F |
| And the melodious bells among the spires | U |
| O'er all the house tops and through heaven above | Q |
| Proclaim the elevation of the Host | F |
| - | |
| VI | Q |
| O star of morning and of liberty | Q |
| O bringer of the light whose splendor shines | U |
| Above the darkness of the Apennines | U |
| Forerunner of the day that is to be | Q |
| The voices of the city and the sea | Q |
| The voices of the mountains and the pines | U |
| Repeat thy song till the familiar lines | U |
| Are footpaths for the thought of Italy | Q |
| Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights | U |
| Through all the nations and a sound is heard | F |
| As of a mighty wind and men devout | F |
| Strangers of Rome and the new proselytes | U |
| In their own language hear thy wondrous word | F |
| And many are amazed and many doubt | F |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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