Judith Of Bethulia Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCADD EFFEGG DHIDJJ KLLMNN OPPQFF RSTRUU BUUBDD| Beautiful as the flying legend of some leopard | A |
| She had not chosen yet her captain nor Prince | B |
| Depositary to her flesh and our defense | C |
| A wandering beauty is a blade out of its scabbard | A |
| You know how dangerous gentlemen of threescore | D |
| May you know it yet ten more | D |
| - | |
| Nor by process of veiling she grew less fabulous | E |
| Grey or blue veils we were desperate to study | F |
| The invincible emanations of her white body | F |
| And the winds at her ordered raiment were ominous | E |
| Might she walk in the market sit in the council of soldiers | G |
| Only of the extreme elders | G |
| - | |
| - | |
| But a rare chance was the girl s then when the Invader | D |
| Trumpeted from the South and rumbled from the North | H |
| Beleaguered the city from four quarters of the earth | I |
| Our soldiery too craven and sick to aid her | D |
| Where were the arms could countervail this horde | J |
| Her beauty was the sword | J |
| - | |
| - | |
| She sat with the elders and proved on their blear visage | K |
| How bright was the weapon unrusted in her keeping | L |
| While he lay surfeiting on their harvest heaping | L |
| Wasting the husbandry of their rarest vintage | M |
| And dreaming of the broad breasted dames for concubine | N |
| These floated on his wine | N |
| - | |
| - | |
| He was lapped with bay leaves and grass and fumiter weed | O |
| And from under the wine film encountered his mortal vision | P |
| For even within his tent she accomplished his derision | P |
| Loosing one veil and another she stood unafraid | Q |
| So he perished Nor brushed her with even so much as a daisy | F |
| She found his destruction easy | F |
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| The heathen have all perished The victory was furnished | R |
| We smote them hiding in vineyards barns annexes | S |
| And now their white bones clutter the holes of foxes | T |
| And the chieftain s head with grinning sockets and varnished | R |
| Is it hung on the sky with a hideous epitaphy | U |
| No the woman keeps the trophy | U |
| - | |
| - | |
| May God send unto our virtuous lady her Prince | B |
| It is stated she went reluctant to that orgy | U |
| Yet a madness fevers our young men and not the clergy | U |
| Nor the elders have turned them unto modesty since | B |
| Inflamed by the thought of her nakedness with desire | D |
| Yes and chilled with fear and despair | D |
John Crowe Ransom
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