A Coin Of Trajan In Australia Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCBDD EFGFGHH IJDKDLL MMNMNOO PPQPQRR IKSKS TT UUVHVWW WWXWXWW YYSYSWW ZZLZLWW EFA2ELLL| Through what strange winding ways of circumstance | A |
| Through what conspiracies of time and chance | A |
| By what long chain of hands from his who pressed | B |
| Upon thy disc the Imperial countenance | C |
| Then threw thee one of many with the rest | B |
| By what long chain of hands a living line | D |
| Of transfer hast thou come from his to mine | D |
| - | |
| Could I but trace thee back from mine to his | E |
| Through the long process of the centuries | F |
| From touch to touch of hands that took or gave | G |
| And read as current things the destinies | F |
| Writ on each palm of master matron slave | G |
| Whereon a moment thou hast lain I should | H |
| Know all that life can hold of ill or good | H |
| - | |
| How strange to think nigh two millenniums gone | I |
| While yet thy legend white from mintage shone | J |
| At such an hour of just such day divine | D |
| Some Roman maiden's hand thou layest upon | K |
| Whose living warmth became a moment thine | D |
| That into this thine actual substance stole | L |
| The gentle tremors pulsing from her soul | L |
| - | |
| Nor yet less strange to think of what long space | M |
| Thou layest forgot in some forgotten place | M |
| While Empire fell or passed to Pontiff Kings | N |
| And while the gradual darkening of thy face | M |
| Was all thy share in all the change of things | N |
| Till some chance hand thy secret touched at last | O |
| And drew thee forth to witness of the past | O |
| - | |
| To be when after lapse of many days | P |
| Thy vagrant fate through unrecorded ways | P |
| At length had brought thee to this alien clime | Q |
| A voice that heedless all of blame or praise | P |
| Protests the spirit of a regal time | Q |
| Against a later dispensation when | R |
| No more doth glory sway the souls of men | R |
| - | |
| Sway me one instant with the glory gone | I |
| One dazzled moment let me gaze upon | K |
| What is impossible again to be | S |
| This image and this superscription con | K |
| As when in silver glow of novelty | S |
| - | |
| They stood for present Empire and designed | T |
| A god incarnate throned amid mankind | T |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Oh magic disc responsive to my mood | U |
| I saw him on his dizzy altitude | U |
| Serene august the lord of all the world | V |
| Imperial in a space of light he stood | H |
| While round his feet in storm lit turmoil whirled | V |
| A cloud of striving Dignities that hid | W |
| From him all nether woes ill auguried | W |
| - | |
| Above distraction and beyond dispute | W |
| The incommunicable attribute | W |
| Of majesty made fiat of his breath | X |
| And when all fain of some imagined suit | W |
| I lifted suppliant hands for life or death | X |
| And caught his glance of calm Olympian pride | W |
| I swooned and swooning Ave Caesar cried | W |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| The glory tissued vision warp and woof | Y |
| Dissolves before the sense of self reproof | Y |
| Ah foolish fain of pictured History | S |
| This in the only land beneath heav'n's roof | Y |
| Where never yet hath manhood bent the knee | S |
| To man the one sole continent whose sod | W |
| The foot of regnant kinghood ne'er hath trod | W |
| - | |
| And yet and yet though all around us lies | Z |
| The freest land beneath the o'er arching skies | Z |
| Rich in a polity of common weal | L |
| Is there among us aught that justifies | Z |
| The scorn of ancient things Can we repeal | L |
| The union 'twixt the present and the past | W |
| And place ourselves as first whom God made last | W |
| - | |
| Because of that which was is that which is | E |
| We are the children of the centuries | F |
| And if our ancients in excess of awe | A2 |
| To Caesar rendered even more than his | E |
| We reap their legacy in sense of law | L |
| Yea Freedom conscious grew by stress of thrall | L |
| The might of one revealed the strength of all | L |
James Brunton Stephens
(1)
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