The Swamp Angel Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDDEDD DFGHIJKJ LMLMININ LILIOPOLHIQ ODADADODDDLDThere is a coal black Angel | A |
With a thick Afric lip | B |
And he dwells like the hunted and harried | C |
In a swamp where the green frogs dip | B |
But his face is against a City | D |
Which is over a bay of the sea | D |
And he breathes with a breath that is | E |
blastment | D |
And dooms by a far decree | D |
- | |
By night there is fear in the City | D |
Through the darkness a star soareth on | F |
There's a scream that screams up to the zenith | G |
Then the poise of a meteor lone | H |
Lighting far the pale fright of the faces | I |
And downward the coming is seen | J |
Then the rush and the burst and the havoc | K |
And wails and shrieks between | J |
- | |
It comes like the thief in the gloaming | L |
It comes and none may foretell | M |
The place of the coming the glaring | L |
They live in a sleepless spell | M |
That wizens and withers and whitens | I |
It ages the young and the bloom | N |
Of the maiden is ashes of roses | I |
The Swamp Angel broods in his gloom | N |
- | |
Swift is his messengers' going | L |
But slowly he saps their halls | I |
As if by delay deluding | L |
They move from their crumbling walls | I |
Farther and farther away | O |
But the Angel sends after and after | P |
By night with the flame of his ray | O |
By night with the voice of his screaming | L |
Sends after them stone by stone | H |
And farther walls fall farther portals | I |
And weed follows weed through the Town | Q |
- | |
Is this the proud City the scorner | O |
Which never would yield the ground | D |
Which mocked at the coal black Angel | A |
The cup of despair goes round | D |
Vainly he calls upon Michael | A |
The white man's seraph was he | D |
For Michael has fled from his tower | O |
To the Angel over the sea | D |
Who weeps for the woeful City | D |
Let him weep for our guilty kind | D |
Who joys at her wild despairing | L |
Christ the Forgiver convert his mind | D |
Herman Melville
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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