On The Palatine Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABBB CDCDDD EFEFFF GHGHHH IJIJJJ JKJKKK LMLMMM JNJNON LPLPPP JQJRQQ JSJSSS QTQTTT UEUEEE SQSQQQI tread the vast deserted stage | A |
Whereon the Caesars lived and died | B |
The relics of Rome's golden age | A |
Lie strewn about me far and wide | B |
Mementoes of an empire's pride | B |
The homes of men once deified | B |
- | |
What are they now Stupendous piles | C |
Of mouldering corridors and walls | D |
On which alike the sunshine smiles | C |
And cold the rain of winter falls | D |
A wilderness of roofless halls | D |
Whose tragic history appalls | D |
- | |
Below me like an opened grave | E |
The Forum's excavations lie | F |
Where column arch and architrave | E |
In solemn grandeur greet the eye | F |
Still guarding 'neath Italia's sky | F |
The glory that can never die | F |
- | |
And here above me and around | G |
In part still shrouded by the soil | H |
A stony chaos strews the ground | G |
Where patient students delve and toil | H |
To bring to light Time's buried spoil | H |
And History's tangled threads uncoil | H |
- | |
Halt where thou standest Rome was born | I |
These stones by Romulus were placed | J |
When on that far off April morn | I |
Two snow white bulls the furrow traced | J |
For Rome's first wall which firmly based | J |
Two thousand years have not effaced | J |
- | |
From these rude blocks how vast the bound | J |
To that huge labyrinthine mass | K |
Through which the secret pathways wound | J |
Where emperors if alarmed could pass | K |
Yet even there could find alas | K |
The poignard or the poisoned glass | K |
- | |
What ghastly crimes these rooms recall | L |
Here Nero watched his brother drain | M |
The fatal draught then lifeless fall | L |
Here too Caligula was slain | M |
When shrieking with disordered brain | M |
He pleaded for his life in vain | M |
- | |
At every turn some pallid ghost | J |
With haggard features seems to rise | N |
To join the long drawn murdered host | J |
That moves with sad averted eyes | N |
Like victims to a sacrifice | O |
To where the Via Sacra lies | N |
- | |
Behold the mighty Judgment Hall | L |
Where Nero with indifferent air | P |
Remarked the pleading of St Paul | L |
Nor dreamed the man before him there | P |
Would soon be read and reverenced where | P |
The Roman empire had no share | P |
- | |
Where are they all those men of pride | J |
Whose palace was the Palatine | Q |
From Romulus the fratricide | J |
To Hadrian and Constantine | R |
The last of all the western line | Q |
Of Caesars who were deemed divine | Q |
- | |
And all the millions who were swayed | J |
By those who dwelt upon this hill | S |
And who in humble awe obeyed | J |
The dictates of their sovereign will | S |
Are they self conscious beings still | S |
Or are their minds and bodies Nil | S |
- | |
I watch our planet's god decline | Q |
Behind the tomb girt Appian Way | T |
The old imperial Palatine | Q |
Grows purple 'neath the sun's last ray | T |
Shades of the Caesars if ye may | T |
The mystery of death portray | T |
- | |
Are there in truth Elysian Fields | U |
And is there life beyond the grave | E |
Or are the years that Nature yields | U |
Confined this side the Stygian wave | E |
For those who more existence crave | E |
Is there a Power to help and save | E |
- | |
Alas no answer on their hill | S |
The murdered Caesars make no sign | Q |
Their myriad subjects too are still | S |
Mute as the voiceless Palatine | Q |
Yet overhead the fixed stars shine | Q |
And bid us trust in the Divine | Q |
John L. Stoddard
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