Constantinople Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B AACA AAAA ABAB D BBBB EFAF GHAH G GAAA IAAA JKGL D MAGA HAGA GANA NOPO| I suddenly realise that the ambition of my life has been since I was two to go on a military expedition against Constantinople Letter from Rupert Brooke Died at Scyros April rd | A |
| - | |
| JUSTINIAN | B |
| - | |
| Does the church stand I raised | A |
| Against the unchristened East | A |
| Still do my ancient altars bear | C |
| The sacrificial feast | A |
| - | |
| My jewels are they bright | A |
| My marbles and my paint | A |
| Wherewith I glorified the Lord | A |
| And many a martyred Saint | A |
| - | |
| And does my dome still float | A |
| Above the Golden Horn | B |
| And do my priests on Christmas Day | A |
| Still sing that Christ was born | B |
| - | |
| - | |
| EUROPE | D |
| - | |
| Though dust your house Justinian | B |
| Still stands your lordliest shrine | B |
| But the dark men who walk therein | B |
| Know not of bread nor wine | B |
| - | |
| They fell long since upon your stones | E |
| And made your colours dim | F |
| Their priests who pray on Christmas Day | A |
| They sing no Christmas hymn | F |
| - | |
| But a voice at evening goes | G |
| From every climbing tower | H |
| Crying a word you never heard | A |
| A name of desert power | H |
| - | |
| - | |
| CONSTANTINE PALAEOLOGUS | G |
| - | |
| For seven hundred years | G |
| We gripped a weakening blade | A |
| Keeping the gateway of the West | A |
| With none to give us aid | A |
| - | |
| Till at the last they broke | I |
| What Constantine had built | A |
| And by the shattered wall the blood | A |
| Of Constantine was spilt | A |
| - | |
| Do men remember still | J |
| The manner of my death | K |
| How after all those failing years | G |
| I at the last kept faith | L |
| - | |
| - | |
| EUROPE | D |
| - | |
| They know it for a bygone thing | M |
| True but indifferent | A |
| For many a fight has come to pass | G |
| Since to the wall you went | A |
| - | |
| Westward and northward Emperor | H |
| Poured on that bloody brood | A |
| Till those must turn to save themselves | G |
| Who had known not gratitude | A |
| - | |
| One fought them on the Middle Sea | G |
| One at Vienna's gate | A |
| And then the kings of Christendom | N |
| Watched the red tide abate | A |
| - | |
| Till in the end Byzantium | N |
| Heard a returning war | O |
| But still a Mehmet holds your tomb | P |
| Keep silence ask no more | O |
John Collings Squire, Sir
(1)
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