Heroic Poem In Praise Of Wine Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCC DDEEFFGGHHHHHIIHHJKH HLMEEHHNHHOOHHPPHHOO QQHHHHHH IIHHRRSSTT UUVVWWKKHHHHOOXXYYHH ZZYY HHYYYOOYYYYA2B2C2C2Q QD2D2YYJJYYYYOOE2E2O OYYHHF2F2IIIHH G2G2 HHHHH2H2QQYYYYI2I2J2 J2Q QQXXHHDDOOZZ QQYYOOQQHH IIYY QQOOHTo exalt enthrone establish and defend | A |
To welcome home mankind's mysterious friend | A |
Wine true begetter of all arts that be | B |
Wine privilege of the completely free | B |
Wine the recorder wine the sagely strong | C |
Wine bright avenger of sly dealing wrong | C |
Awake Ausonian Muse and sing the vineyard song | C |
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Sing how the Charioteer from Asia came | D |
And on his front the little dancing flame | D |
Which marked the God head Sing the Panther team | E |
The gilded Thrysus twirling and the gleam | E |
Of cymbals through the darkness Sing the drums | F |
He comes the young renewer of Hellas comes | F |
The Seas await him Those Aegean Seas | G |
Roll from the dawning ponderous ill at ease | G |
In lifts of lead whose cresting hardly breaks | H |
To ghostly foam when suddenly there awakes | H |
A mountain glory inland All the skies | H |
Are luminous and amid the sea bird cries | H |
The mariner hears a morning breeze arise | H |
Then goes the Pageant forward The sea way | I |
Silvers the feet of that august array | I |
Trailing above the waters through the airs | H |
And as they pass a wind before them bears | H |
The quickening word the influence magical | J |
The Islands have received it marble tall | K |
The long shores of the mainland Something fills | H |
The warm Euboean combes the sacred hills | H |
Of Aulis and of Argos Still they move | L |
Touching the City walls the Temple grove | M |
Till far upon the horizon glint a gleam | E |
Of light of trembling light revealed they seem | E |
Turned to a cloud but to a cloud that shines | H |
And everywhere as they pass the Vines The Vines | H |
The Vines the conquering Vines And the Vine | N |
breaths | H |
Her savour through the upland empty heaths | H |
Of treeless wastes the Vines have come to where | O |
The dark Pelasgian steep defends the lair | O |
Of the wolf's hiding to the empty fields | H |
By Aufidus the dry campaign that yields | H |
No harvest for the husbandman but now | P |
Shall bear a nobler foison than the plough | P |
To where festooned along the tall elm trees | H |
Tendrils are mirrored in Tyrrhenian seas | H |
To where the South awaits them even to where | O |
Stark African informed of burning air | O |
Upturned to Heaven the broad Hipponian plain | Q |
Extends luxurious and invites the main | Q |
Guelma's a mother barren Thaspsa breeds | H |
And northward in the valleys next the meads | H |
That sleep by misty river banks the Vines | H |
Have struck to spread below the solemn pines | H |
The Vines are on the roof trees All the Shrines | H |
And Homes of men are consecrate with Vines | H |
- | |
And now the task of that triumphant day | I |
Has reached to victory In the reddening ray | I |
With all his train from hard Iberian lands | H |
Fulfilled apparent that Creator stands | H |
Halted on Atlas Far Beneath him far | R |
The strength of Ocean darkening and the star | R |
Beyond all shores There is a silence made | S |
It glorifies and the gigantic shade | S |
Of Hercules adores him from the West | T |
Dead Lucre burnt Ambition Wine is best | T |
- | |
But what are these that from the outer murk | U |
Of dense mephitic vapours creeping lurk | U |
To breathe foul airs from that corrupted well | V |
Which oozes slime along the floor of Hell | V |
These are the stricken palsied brood of sin | W |
In whose vile veins poor poisonous and thin | W |
Decoctions of embittered hatreds crawl | K |
These are the Water Drinkers cursed all | K |
On what gin sodden Hags what flaccid sires | H |
Bred these White Slugs from what exhaust desires | H |
In what close prison's horror were their wiles | H |
Watched by what tyrant power with evil smiles | H |
Or in what caverns blocked from grace and air | O |
Received they then the mandates of despair | O |
What Must our race our tragic race that roam | X |
All exiled from our first and final home | X |
That in one moment of temptation lost | Y |
Our heritage and now wander hunger tost | Y |
Beyond the Gates still speaking with our eyes | H |
For ever of remembered Paradise | H |
Must we with every gift accepted still | Z |
With every joy receive attendant ill | Z |
Must some lewd evil follow all our good | Y |
And muttering dog our brief beatitude | Y |
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A primal doom inexorable wise | H |
Permitted ordered even these to rise | H |
Even in the shadow of so bright a Lord | Y |
Must swarm and propagate the filthy horde | Y |
Debased accursed I say abhorrent and abhorred | Y |
Accursed and curse bestowing For whosoe'er | O |
Shall suffer their contagion everywhere | O |
Falls from the estate of man and finds his end | Y |
To the mere beverage of the beast condemned | Y |
For such as these in vain the Rhine has rolled | Y |
Imperial centuries by hills of gold | Y |
For such as these the flashing Rhone shall rage | A2 |
In vain its lightning through the Hermitage | B2 |
Or level browed divine Touraine receive | C2 |
The tribute of her vintages at eve | C2 |
For such as these Burgundian heats in vain | Q |
Swell the rich slope or load the empurpled plain | Q |
Bootless for such as these the mighty task | D2 |
Of bottling God the Father in a flask | D2 |
And leading all Creation down distilled | Y |
To one small ardent sphere immensely filled | Y |
With memories empty with experience null | J |
With vapid eye balls meaningless and dull | J |
They pass unblest through the unfruitful light | Y |
And when we open the bronze doors of Night | Y |
When we in high carousal we reclined | Y |
Spur up to Heaven the still ascending mind | Y |
Pass with the all inspiring to and fro | O |
The torch of genius and the Muse's glow | O |
They lifeless stare at vacancy alone | E2 |
Or plan mean traffic or repeat their moan | E2 |
We when repose demands us welcomed are | O |
In young white arms like our great Exemplar | O |
Who wearied with creation takes his rest | Y |
And sinks to sleep on Ariadne's breast | Y |
They through the darkness into darkness press | H |
Despised abandoned and companionless | H |
And when the course of either's sleep has run | F2 |
We leap to life like heralds of the sun | F2 |
We from the couch in roseate mornings gay | I |
Salute as equals the exultant day | I |
While they the unworthy unrewarded they | I |
The dank despisers of the Vine arise | H |
To watch grey dawns and mourn indifferent skies | H |
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Forget them Form the Dionysian ring | G2 |
And pulse the ground and Io Io sing | G2 |
- | |
Father Lenaean to whom our strength belongs | H |
Our loves our wars our laughter and our songs | H |
Remember our inheritance who praise | H |
Your glory in these last unhappy days | H |
When beauty sickens and a muddied robe | H2 |
Of baseness fouls the universal globe | H2 |
Though all the Gods indignant and their train | Q |
Abandon ruined man do thou remain | Q |
By thee the vesture of our life was made | Y |
The Embattled Gate the lordly Colonnade | Y |
The woven fabric's gracious hues the sound | Y |
Of trumpets and the quivering fountain round | Y |
And indestructible the Arch and high | I2 |
The Shaft of Stone that stands against the sky | I2 |
And last the guardian genius of them Rhyme | J2 |
Come from beyond the world to conquer time | J2 |
All these are thine Lenaean | Q |
- | |
By thee do seers the inward light discern | Q |
By thee the statue lives the Gods return | Q |
By thee the thunder and the falling foam | X |
Of loud Acquoria's torrent call to Rome | X |
Alba rejoices in a thousand springs | H |
Gensano laughs and Orvieto sings | H |
But Ah With Orvieto with that name | D |
Of dark Eturian subterranean flame | D |
The years dissolve I am standing in that hour | O |
Of majesty Septembral and the power | O |
Which swells the clusters when the nights are still | Z |
With autumn stars on Orvieto hill | Z |
- | |
Had these been mine Ausonian Muse to know | Q |
The large contented oxen heaving slow | Q |
To count my sheaves at harvest so to spend | Y |
Perfected days in peace until the end | Y |
With every evening's dust of gold to hear | O |
The bells upon the pasture height the clear | O |
Full horn of herdsmen gathering in the kine | Q |
To ancient byres in hamlets Appenine | Q |
And crown abundant age with generous ease | H |
Had these Ausonian Muse had these had these | H |
- | |
But since I would not since I could not stay | I |
Let me remember even in this my day | I |
How when the ephemeral vision's lure is past | Y |
All all must face their Passion at the last | Y |
- | |
Was there not one that did to Heaven complain | Q |
How driving through the midnight and the rain | Q |
He struck the Atlantic seethe and surge before | O |
Wrecked in the North along a lonely shore | O |
To make the lights of home and hear his | H |
Hilaire Belloc
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