The Golden Legend: V. A Covered Bridge At Lucerne Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBBDEFGE BB F H DIJFKLI M EBNOP F ENQF EBN BR S KTO SFNLFB E I UFCJ BBFVWX YBFFFFDI Z EFA2 GB FB2FC2YNBBYEBBYFB D2 G B GGOE2OYYE2 F2 BBWWBYYW F2 FFY YY F2 A2G2H2H2G2A2YEYYY E YYYFFY E YBB B BA2BBI2B BB EI2 YYFB BBE BEFY B A2 FE2FE B F EEB EFVBYYYJ2 BK2L2B E B E NBNBBBB| Prince Henry God's blessing on the architects who build | A |
| The bridges o'er swift rivers and abysses | B |
| Before impassable to human feet | C |
| No less than on the builders of cathedrals | B |
| Whose massive walls are bridges thrown across | B |
| The dark and terrible abyss of Death | D |
| Well has the name of Pontifex been given | E |
| Unto the Church's head as the chief builder | F |
| And architect of the invisible bridge | G |
| That leads from earth to heaven | E |
| - | |
| Elsie How dark it grows | B |
| What are these paintings on the walls around us | B |
| - | |
| Prince Henry The Dance Macaber | F |
| - | |
| Elsie What | H |
| - | |
| Prince Henry The Dance of Death | D |
| All that go to and fro must look upon it | I |
| Mindful of what they shall be while beneath | J |
| Among the wooden piles the turbulent river | F |
| Rushes impetuous as the river of life | K |
| With dimpling eddies ever green and bright | L |
| Save where the shadow of this bridge falls on it | I |
| - | |
| Elsie O yes I see it now | M |
| - | |
| Prince Henry The grim musician | E |
| Leads all men through the mazes of that dance | B |
| To different sounds in different measures moving | N |
| Sometimes he plays a lute sometimes a drum | O |
| To tempt or terrify | P |
| - | |
| Elsie What is this picture | F |
| - | |
| Prince Henry It is a young man singing to a nun | E |
| Who kneels at her devotions but in kneeling | N |
| Turns round to look at him and Death meanwhile | Q |
| Is putting out the candles on the altar | F |
| - | |
| Elsie Ah what a pity 't is that she should listen | E |
| to such songs when in her orisons | B |
| She might have heard in heaven the angels singing | N |
| - | |
| Prince Henry Here he has stolen a jester's cap and bells | B |
| And dances with the Queen | R |
| - | |
| Elsie A foolish jest | S |
| - | |
| Prince Henry And here the heart of the new wedded wife | K |
| Coming from church with her beloved lord | T |
| He startles with the rattle of his drum | O |
| - | |
| Elsie Ah that is sad And yet perhaps 't is best | S |
| That she should die with all the sunshine on her | F |
| And all the benedictions of the morning | N |
| Before this affluence of golden light | L |
| Shall fade into a cold and clouded gray | F |
| Then into darkness | B |
| - | |
| Prince Henry Under it is written | E |
| 'Nothing but death shall separate thee and me ' | - |
| - | |
| Elsie And what is this that follows close upon it | I |
| - | |
| Prince Henry Death playing on a ducimer Behind him | U |
| A poor old woman with a rosary | F |
| Follows the sound and seems to wish her feet | C |
| Were swifter to o'ertake him Underneath | J |
| The inscription reads 'Better is Death than Life ' | - |
| - | |
| Elsie Better is Death than Life Ah yes to thousands | B |
| Death plays upon a dulcimer and sings | B |
| That song of consolation till the air | F |
| Rings with it and they cannot choose but follow | V |
| Whither he leads And not the old alone | W |
| But the young also hear it and are still | X |
| - | |
| Prince Henry Yes in their sadder moments 'T is the sound | Y |
| Of their own hearts they hear half full of tears | B |
| Which are like crystal cups half filled with water | F |
| Responding to the pressure of a finger | F |
| With music sweet and low and melancholy | F |
| Let us go forward and no longer stay | F |
| In this great picture gallery of Death | D |
| I hate it ay the very thought of it | I |
| - | |
| Elsie Why is it hateful to you | Z |
| - | |
| Prince Henry For the reason | E |
| That life and all that speaks of life is lovely | F |
| And death and all that speaks of death is hateful | A2 |
| - | |
| Elsie The grave is but a covered bridge | G |
| leading from light to light through a brief darkness | B |
| - | |
| Prince Henry emerging from the bridge I breathe again more | F |
| freely Ah how pleasant | B2 |
| To come once more into the light of day | F |
| Out of that shadow of death To hear again | C2 |
| The hoof beats of our horses on firm ground | Y |
| And not upon those hollow planks resounding | N |
| With a sepulchral echo like the clods | B |
| On coffins in a churchyard Yonder lies | B |
| The Lake of the Four Forest Towns apparelled | Y |
| In light and lingering like a village maiden | E |
| Hid in the bosom of her native mountains | B |
| Then pouring all her life into another's | B |
| Changing her name and being Overhead | Y |
| Shaking his cloudy tresses loose in air | F |
| Rises Pilatus with his windy pines | B |
| - | |
| They pass on | D2 |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| THE DEVIL'S BRIDGE | G |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| PRINCE HENRY and ELSIE crossing with attendants | B |
| - | |
| Guide This bridge is called the Devil's Bridge | G |
| With a single arch from ridge to ridge | G |
| It leaps across the terrible chasm | O |
| Yawning beneath us black and deep | E2 |
| As if in some convulsive spasm | O |
| the summits of the hills had cracked | Y |
| and made a road for the cataract | Y |
| That raves and rages down the steep | E2 |
| - | |
| Lucifer under the bridge Ha ha | F2 |
| - | |
| Guide Never any bridge but this | B |
| Could stand across the wild abyss | B |
| All the rest of wood or stone | W |
| By the Devil's hand were overthrown | W |
| He toppled crags from the precipice | B |
| And whatsoe'er was built by day | Y |
| In the night was swept away | Y |
| None could stand but this alone | W |
| - | |
| Lucifer under the bridge Ha ha | F2 |
| - | |
| Guide I showed you in the valley a boulder | F |
| Marked with the imprint of his shoulder | F |
| As he was bearing it up this way | Y |
| A peasant passing cried 'Herr Je ' | - |
| And the Devil dropped it in his fright | Y |
| And vanished suddenly out of sight | Y |
| - | |
| Lucifer under the bridge Ha ha | F2 |
| - | |
| Guide Abbot Giraldus of Einsiedel | A2 |
| For pilgrims on their way to Rome | G2 |
| Built this at last with a single arch | H2 |
| Under which on its endless march | H2 |
| Runs the river white with foam | G2 |
| Like a thread through the eye of a needle | A2 |
| And the Devil promised to let it stand | Y |
| Under compact and condition | E |
| That the first living thing which crossed | Y |
| Should be surrendered into his hand | Y |
| And be beyond redemption lost | Y |
| - | |
| Lucifer under the bridge Ha ha perdition | E |
| - | |
| Guide At length the bridge being all completed | Y |
| The Abbot standing at its head | Y |
| Threw across it a loaf of bread | Y |
| Which a hungry dog sprang after | F |
| And the rocks reechoed with peals of laughter | F |
| To see the Devil thus defeated | Y |
| - | |
| They pass on | E |
| - | |
| Lucifer under the bridge Ha ha defeated | Y |
| For journeys and for crimes like this | B |
| To let the bridge stand o'er the abyss | B |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| THE ST GOTHARD PASS | B |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Prince Henry This is the highest point Two ways the rivers | B |
| Leap down to different seas and as they roll | A2 |
| Grow deep and still and their majestic presence | B |
| Becomes a benefaction to the towns | B |
| They visit wandering silently among them | I2 |
| Like patriarchs old among their shining tents | B |
| - | |
| Elsie How bleak and bare it is Nothing but mosses | B |
| Grow on these rocks | B |
| - | |
| Prince Henry Yet are they not forgotten | E |
| Beneficent Nature sends the mists to feed them | I2 |
| - | |
| Elsie See yonder little cloud that borne aloft | Y |
| So tenderly by the wind floats fast away | Y |
| Over the snowy peaks It seems to me | F |
| The body of St Catherine borne by angels | B |
| - | |
| Prince Henry Thou art St Catherine and invisible angels | B |
| Bear thee across these chasms and precipices | B |
| Lest thou shouldst dash thy feet against a stone | E |
| - | |
| Elsie Would I were borne unto my grave as she was | B |
| Upon angelic shoulders Even now | E |
| I Seem uplifted by them light as air | F |
| What sound is that | Y |
| - | |
| Prince Henry The tumbling avalanches | B |
| - | |
| Elsie How awful yet how beautiful | A2 |
| - | |
| Prince Henry These are | F |
| The voices of the mountains Thus they ope | E2 |
| Their snowy lips and speak unto each other | F |
| In the primeval language lost to man | E |
| - | |
| Elsie What land is this that spreads itself beneath us | B |
| - | |
| Prince Henry Italy Italy | F |
| - | |
| Elsie Land of the Madonna | E |
| How beautiful it is It seems a garden | E |
| Of Paradise | B |
| - | |
| Prince Henry Nay of Gethsemane | E |
| To thee and me of passion and of prayer | F |
| Yet once of Paradise Long years ago | V |
| I wandered as a youth among its bowers | B |
| And never from my heart has faded quite | Y |
| Its memory that like a summer sunset | Y |
| Encircles with a ring of purple light | Y |
| All the horizon of my youth | J2 |
| - | |
| Guide O friends | B |
| The days are short the way before us long | K2 |
| We must not linger if we think to reach | L2 |
| The inn at Belinzona before vespers | B |
| - | |
| They pass on | E |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| AT THE FOOT OF THE ALPS | B |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| A halt under the trees at noon | E |
| - | |
| Prince Henry Here let us pause a moment in the trembling | N |
| Shadow and sunshine of the roadside trees | B |
| And our tired horses in a group assembling | N |
| Inhale long draughts of this delicious breeze | B |
| Our fleeter steeds have distanced our attendants | B |
| They lag behind us with a slower pace | B |
| We will await them under the green pendants | B |
| Of the great w | - |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1)
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About The Golden Legend: V. A Covered Bridge At Lucerne
The Golden Legend: V. A Covered Bridge At Lucerne is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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