The Doom Of A City, Part I - The Voyage Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCEDDEECFDFDGGH HICIC JKEEKJBLMNBNOOON PQQEOPECPEROCC B OEEOEEEE B EDSSDRETUEVRTVETEERT RWTET V TTEXETTXVEEEEET V YZEYKENA2ENA2UTB2B2U EEPPTTC2RUC2UEEQUTUC 2TQC2 V TUTUTQHTQHEOOEVEEVUU C2C2 T TUTUTTGRVRVGD2RD2E2E 2 T EF2VEEVF2UTEEEETNPNE PA2G2QA2 U H2I2I2H2UUH2UTUTTUTT EUTA2A2EVV T UUUURTETEEA2TTA2 T PTPETPEPETEEEEUGRGU V E2PE2UTPUTPPTTPITTGJ 2GIRJ2ETRETI2OOI2 V ETETVGEVGEEEUTTEUTTQ Q V EE2EE2VTVTEE2EE2UEUE PRPRK2EK2T UEUERA2RA2OYOYETET

From out the house I crept	A
The house which long had caged my homeless life	B
The mighty City in vast silence slept	A
Dreaming away its tumult toil and strife	B
But sleep and sleep's rich dreams were not for me	C
For me accurst whom terror and the pain	D
Of baffled longings and starved misery	C
And such remorse as sears the breast	E
And hopeless doubt which gnaws the brain	D
Till wildest action blind and vain	D
Would be more welcome than supine unrest	E
Drove forth as one possest	E
To leave my kind and dare the desert sea	C
To drift alone and far	F
Dubious of any port or isle to gain	D
Ignorant of chart and star	F
Upon that infinite and mysterious main	D
Which wastes in foam against our shore	G
Whose moans and murmurs evermore	G
Insupportably sublime	H
Haunting the crowded tumult of our Time	H
Suspend its hurrying breath	I
Like whispers of sad ghosts and spirits free	C
From worlds beyond our life and death	I
The unknown awful realm where broods Eternity	C
	-
	-
II	-
	-
I paced through desert streets beneath the gleam	J
Of lamps that lit my trembling life alone	K
Like lamps sepulchral which had slowly burned	E
Through sunless ages deep and undiscerned	E
Within a buried City's maze of stone	K
Whose peopling corpses while they ever dream	J
Of birth and death of complicated life	B
Whose days and months and years	L
Are wild with laughters groans and tears	M
As with themselves and Doom	N
They wage with loss or gain incessant strife	B
Indeed lie motionless within their tomb	N
Lie motionless and never laugh or weep	O
All still and buried deep	O
For ever in death's sleep	O
While burn the quiet lamps amidst the breathless gloom	N
	-
	-
III	-
	-
My boat lay waiting there	P
Upon the moonless river	Q
Whose pulse had ceased to quiver	Q
In that unnatural hush of brooding night	E
I thought Free breezes course the billowy deep	O
And rowed on panting through the feverous air	P
Leaving the great main waters on in my right	E
For that canal which creeps into the sea	C
Across the livid marshes wild and bare	P
So slowly faded back from sight	E
As cloth a dream insensibly	R
Fade backward on the ebbing tide of sleep	O
That city which had home nor hope for me	C
That stifling tomb from which I now was free	C
	-
	-
IV	B
	-
Like some weak life whose sluggish moments creep	O
Diffused on worthless objects yet whose tide	E
With dull reluctance hard to understand	E
Refrains its death in life from death's full sleep	O
The river's shallow waters oozed out wide	E
Inclosing dreary flats of barren sand	E
So merged at last into the lethal waste	E
That bounds of sea and stream could not be traced	E
	-
	-
V	B
	-
Long languidly I rowed	E
With sick and weary pain	D
Between the deepest channel's bitter weeds	S
Whose rankness salt slime feeds	S
And so out blindly through the dismal main	D
Now shaken with a long hoarse growling swell	R
And soon the Tempest as a King who had slept	E
The sleep of worn out frenzy while his slaves	T
Cowered still in stupor till he woke again	U
Refreshed for carnage from his torpor leapt	E
Breathed swarthy pallor through the dense low sky	V
And hurrying swift and fell	R
Outspeeded his own thunder bearing glooms	T
Then prone and instantaneous from on high	V
Plunged down in one tremendous blast	E
Which crashed into white dust the heaving waves	T
And left the ocean level when it past	E
There was a moment's respite silence reigned	E
Such shuddering silence as may once appal	R
The universe of tombs	T
Ere the last trumpet's clangour rend them all	R
And I sank down one frail and helpless man	W
Alone with desolation on the sea	T
To pray while any sense of prayer remained	E
Amidst the horrors overwhelming me	T
	-
	-
VI	V
	-
How shall I tell that tempest's thunder story	T
The soldier plunged into the Battle stress	T
Struggling and gasping in the mighty flood	E
Stunned with the roar of cannon blind with smoke	X
'Midst yells and tramplings drunk and mad with blood	E
What knows he of the Battle's spheric glory	T
Of heavenly laws that all its evil bless	T
Of sacred rights of justice which invoke	X
Its sternest pleading of the tranquil eye	V
Triumphant o'er its chaos of the Mind	E
Commanding all serene and unsubdued	E
Which having first with wisest care designed	E
Works to the end with vigilant fortitude	E
And from that field so drenched with angry blood	E
Shall reap the golden harvest VICTORY	T
	-
	-
VII	V
	-
There was a stupor stung with pain and fear	Y
Amidst the strangling surf flung on and on	Z
There was bewilderment above all dread	E
Delirious calm and desperate joy austere	Y
Of revelling through the tempest lorn and lone	K
My boat and I with dizzy swiftness sped	E
In strange salvation from the certain doom	N
Along the urgent ridges over reeling	A2
And gathering up their ruins as they fled	E
And down into the depths of scooped out gloom	N
Whose crystal walls glowed black in the revealing	A2
Of lightning kindled foam and up again	U
Perched on the giddy balance of two waves	T
Which fiercely countering mingle with the shock	B2
And rush aloft confused and tower and rock	B2
Foaming with wild convulsion till amain	U
The mass heaves down from struggling self destroyed	E
And leaves us shuddering in a gulfy void	E
Confused and intermingled fire sea air	P
Wrought out their ravage for the thunders there	P
Were echoing in the dreadly stormless caves	T
And shook the deep foundations of the seas	T
The air was like an ocean drenched with spray	C2
Whose meteor flakes outflashed tumultuously	R
Against the sinking heaven's black incline	U
When sudden lightnings seemed to burst their way	C2
Up through the deep to flood and fire its brine	U
Ingulfing for each moment all the Night	E
The blackness and the howling rage in light	E
More lurid and appalling a World pyre	Q
But heart and brain were overwrought and soon	U
All vision reeling from my powerless eyes	T
I lay in quiet mercy granted swoon	U
As senseless as the boat in which I lay	C2
And we two things through all the agonies	T
Of night tornado sea and fire	Q
Were drifted passive on our fearful way	C2
	-
	-
VIII	V
	-
I know not for what time I lay in trance	T
Nor in what course the tempest hurled us on	U
At length to scarce believed deliverance	T
I woke and saw a sweet slow silent dawn	U
Upgrowing from the far dim grey abyss	T
So slow it seemed like some celestial flower	Q
Unfolding perfect petals to its prime	H
And feeling in its secret soul of bliss	T
Each leaf a loveliness for many an hour	Q
With amaranthine queenship over time	H
It grew its purple splendours flecked and starred	E
With golden fire spread floating up the steep	O
Until they sole possessed the mighty sweep	O
Of crystal lucent aether its regard	E
The blessing of a light of peace and love	V
Charmed with a gradual spell the sullen mood	E
Of the sea giant until all subdued	E
No more his huge bulk livid shook and hove	V
The meteor threatenings of his tawny mane	U
No more growled lingering wrath and turbulent pain	U
But calm and glad th' unmonstered monster lay	C2
Beneath the royal sun's perfected sway	C2
	-
	-
IX	T
	-
And there was Land Where seemed a bank of clouds	T
Piled in the South now nobly one by one	U
The pinnacles of lofty mountain peaks	T
Flamed keen as stars enkindled by the sun	U
Emerging as with life from out their shrouds	T
Of silvern haze far cleft with roseate streaks	T
And far beneath them down along the shore	G
A wave of low round hills gleamed pure and pale	R
But soon like any human life	V
The golden promise of whose dawn doth fail	R
Into the same drear noon of barren strife	V
Of which our hearts were weary sick of yore	G
The day grew chill and dark	D2
And through its sullen hours the wintry gale	R
Beat restlessly my bark	D2
Beside that coast line drifting to and fro	E2
Upon the ocean's vapour shrouded flow	E2
	-
	-
X	T
	-
I saw grey phantoms fading as they fled	E
Glide hurrying in loose rank	F2
O'er livid backgrounds of the upper sky	V
Whose vast and thunderous threat'ning overfrowned	E
Abysses strangely dread	E
Cold glassy gulfs each like an evil eye	V
Of serpent malice which is dead and blank	F2
To every sight but woe and agony	U
The fascination of their wan green glance	T
Was fixed upon the hills which at the foot	E
Of that stern wall of mountain lifted proud	E
Above the firmament of level cloud	E
Lay stretched out cold and mute	E
In leaden bulk beneath the long expanse	T
Of dark and desert sky whose brooding gloom	N
Was blanched with cruel pallor here and there	P
Pallor of wrath or dread instinct with doom	N
There stretched they far a dark and silent host	E
Like monsters stranded from their deep sea lair	P
Benumbed with terror cowering	A2
Still unrecovered from the storm whose ire	G2
Had drowned them in wild floods of pitiless fire	Q
Or prescient of some deadlier tempest lowering	A2
	-
	-
XI	U
	-
At intervals opposing the sun's track	H2
Circling about the North	I2
Shone strangely blazoned forth	I2
Wild rainbow fragments on the sweeping rack	H2
The gale's rent symbol on rent banners borne	U
For ever and anon the sun gazed down	U
From dizzy summits of the cloud crags black	H2
Or where the wind had torn	U
Vast jagged rifts athwart their mass	T
Behind whose heavy frown	U
Faint smiles of soothing like a robe of grass	T
Had fallen from him on the frozen hills	T
He gazed out powerless o'er the rain grey sea	U
No eye which sorrow fills	T
With constant bitter tears	T
Drowning all life and lustre joy and pride	E
Can gaze more faint and wan and hopelessly	U
Into the homeless world and waste of years	T
Spread out between it and the grave's sweet sleeping	A2
Can let the dark lid sink upon its weeping	A2
More often fain to hide	E
The chilling desolation blurred with strife	V
Which seen or unseen maps its future life	V
	-
	-
XII	T
	-
Ere sunset came a storm of rain	U
Ploughing up the barren main	U
With fierce and vital energy	U
While brief bright lightnings flashed incessantly	U
And then the South stood up one solid wall	R
Of battlemented cloud in which the mountains	T
And hills were fused together out of sight	E
The sinking sun from his intense fire f'ountains	T
Poured out against its heaven absorbing might	E
Seas of lurid purple light	E
And fulvous meteors surging and devouring	A2
The shattered crests the crumbling slopes	T
The massive walls the riven copes	T
In fortitude of glowing bronze far towering	A2
	-
	-
XIII	T
	-
From all the secret caverns of the air	P
Night's gloomy phantoms issuing gathered dense	T
To blot and stifle out the pageant there	P
The murmur of their motions breathing wide	E
Through that new silence thrilled upon the sense	T
When gazing southward I became aware	P
Of some slow movement by the dim sea side	E
As of a wind arousing from its lair	P
To rend the settled vapours I descried	E
After an interval of rapt suspense	T
By what faint gloaming yet was left of day	E
Two startling lamps uplifted slowly glide	E
From out the thick and dun immensity	E
Fronting a long dark line like some array	E
Of men that came in silent mystery	U
Across the undulations of the shore	G
Long winding coil on coil unbrokenly	R
To celebrate weird rites and sorceries hoar	G
Shrouded in gloom beside the moaning sea	U
	-
	-
XIV	V
	-
I knew but would not know	E2
I knew too well but knowledge was despair	P
It came on vast and slow	E2
And dipt those baleful meteors in the brine	U
Whence soon it lifted them with hideous cries	T
That flung strange horror through the shuddering air	P
Haling its length in many a monstrous twine	U
It bore on steadfastly those loathsome eyes	T
Set in the midst of intertangled hair	P
Like sea weed in whose jungle have their lair	P
All foul and half lived things	T
With such a gleam as haunts the rotting graves	T
They fixed upon me their malignant stare	P
Shallow and slimy fiendish eyes of death	I
It neared me soon with ponderous wallowings	T
Athwart the heaving and repugnant waves	T
Then paused a moment and with one harsh roar	G
Heaved up its whole obscene and ghastly bulk	J2
To rankle in my memory evermore	G
With hissing shrieks and bursts of' strangled breath	I
Torn by some agonizing pang it fell	R
And lay upon the sea a vast dead hulk	J2
But raised yet once the huge and formless head	E
Whence blood dark foam was showering and those eyes	T
Glared blinking on me with the hate of Hell	R
Before it turned reluctantly and fled	E
Down down convicted by the holy skies	T
Away away God it hurtled forth	I2
To cower in frozen caverns of the deep	O
To haunt a nightmare in that ghastly sleep	O
The death and desolation of the North	I2
	-
	-
XV	V
	-
A man forlorn has wandered cursed from rest	E
Through Time's dead wastes and savage howling seas	T
Bearing a fateful Horror in his breast	E
Formless and dim but mighty to disease	T
Devouring poisoning stifling his pure life	V
And suddenly when Hope can hope no more	G
He feels its coils unwinding from his heart	E
And rich vitality with glorious strife	V
Surging through veins all shrunk and numb before	G
But also sees the Incubus depart	E
Coil after coil reluctant dragged away	E
As were a serpent's from its strangled prey	E
And thus in his first health is clearly shown	U
What still was hidden from his lunacy	T
The full obscene and deadly ghastliness	T
Of that which held and ruled him to this day	E
Abhorrence almost chills him into stone	U
And that great blow which struck the prisoner free	T
Hath nearly slain him by its mighty stress	T
Such was my agony of joy that hour	Q
When saved for ever from the monster's power	Q
	-
	-
XVI	V
	-
The sky was spacious warm and bright	E
The clouds were pure as morning snow	E2
In myriad points of living light	E
The sea lay laughing to and fro	E2
Above the hills a depth of sky	V
Dim pale with heat and light intense	T
Was overhung by clouds piled high	V
In mountain ranges huge and dense	T
Whose rifts and ridges ran aloft	E
Far to their crests of dazzling snow	E2
Whence spread a vaporous lustre soft	E
Veiling the noontide's azure glow	E2
Through mists of purple glory seen	U
Those dim and panting hill waves lay	E
Absorbed into the heavens serene	U
Dissolving in the perfect day	E
	-
But when the sun burned high and bare	P
In his own realm of solemn blue	R
The clouds hung isolated there	P
Dark purple grandeurs vast and few	R
Like massive sculptures wrought at large	K2
Upon that dome's immensity	E
Like constant isles whose foamlit marge	K2
Rose high from out that sapphire sea	T
	-
And all the day my boat sped on	U
With rapid gliding smooth as rest	E
As if by mystic dreamings drawn	U
To some fair haven in the West	E
Flew onward swift without a gale	R
As if it were a living thing	A2
And spread with joy its snow white sail	R
As spreads a bird its snow white wing	A2
Flashed on along the lucid deep	O
Dividing that most perfect sphere	Y
A vault above it glowing steep	O
A vault beneath it no less clear	Y
Within whose burning sapphire round	E
The clouds the air the land the sea	T
Lay thrilled with quivering glory drowned	E
In calm as of Eternity	T

James Thomson - (bysshe Vanolis)

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About The Doom Of A City, Part I - The Voyage

The Doom Of A City, Part I - The Voyage is a poem by James Thomson - (bysshe Vanolis). This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.

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