Caesar's Wife Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEF GHIJKLKMNOIOPQRSTIUV M WXYIZA2B2C2XE TD2IE2IA2IXXF2ENAY swear no more thou woman whom I called | A |
Star Empress Wife Were Dian's self to lean | B |
From her white altar and with goddess lip | C |
Swear thee as pure as her pale breast divine | D |
I could not deem thee purer than I know | E |
Thou art indeed | F |
- | |
Once when my triumphs rolled | G |
Along old Rome and blood of roses washed | H |
The battle stains from off my chariot wheels | I |
And triumph's thunders round my legions roared | J |
And kings in kingly bondage golden bound | K |
Shook at my charger's foot past the hot din | L |
Of Victory whose heart of golden pride in wound | K |
Most subtly through with fire of subtlest pain | M |
My soul on prouder pinion rose above | N |
The Roman shouting to an air more clear | O |
Than that Jove darks with hurtling thunderbolts | I |
Or stains with Jovian revels that separate sphere | O |
Unshared of gods or man where thy white feet | P |
Caught their sole staining from my ruddy heart | Q |
Blazing beneath them where when Rome looked up | R |
'Twas with the eyes close shaded with the hand | S |
As at some glory terrible and pure | T |
For no man being pure a terror dwells | I |
Holy and awful in a sinless thing | U |
And Caesar's wife the Empress Matron sat | V |
Above a doubt as high above a stain | M |
- | |
Nay how know I what hell first belched abroad | W |
Tall flames and slanderous vomitings of smoke | X |
Blown by infernal breathings till they scaled | Y |
Thy throne of whiteness and the very slaves | I |
Who crouched in Roman kennels wagged the tongue | Z |
Against the wife of Caesar 'Ha we need not now | A2 |
And opal shaded stone wherewith to view | B2 |
A stainless glory ' In that day my neck | C2 |
Was bound and yoked with my twin Caesar's yoke | X |
Man's master Sorrow | E |
- | |
I know thee pure | T |
But Caesar's wife must throne herself so high | D2 |
Upon the hills that touch their snowy crests | I |
So close on Heaven that no slanderous Hell | E2 |
Can dash its lava up their swelling sides | I |
I love thee woman know thee pure but thou | A2 |
No more art wife of Caesar Get thee hence | I |
My heart is hardened as a lonely crag | X |
Grey granite lifted to a greyer sky | X |
And where against its solitary crown | F2 |
Eternal thunders bellow | E |
Isabella Valancy Crawford
(1)
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