Villa Pliniana Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDD EFGFHH EEIEEE EEJEEE EKEKGG ELMLNN OPEPQQ EEEERR STPTUU VWXWYY YZEZYY EA2B2A2TT| It stands where darkly wooded cliffs | A |
| Slope swiftly to the deep | B |
| And silvery streams from ledge to ledge | C |
| In foaming splendor leap | B |
| A broad expanse of saffron walls | D |
| A wilderness of mouldering halls | D |
| - | |
| The torrent's breath hath spread its blight | E |
| On every darkened room | F |
| And oozing mosses drip decay | G |
| Through corridors of gloom | F |
| While Ruin lays a subtle snare | H |
| On many a yielding rail and stair | H |
| - | |
| There seats which beauty once enthroned | E |
| In tattered damask stand | E |
| In gray neglect a faun extends | I |
| A mutilated hand | E |
| And silence makes the festal board | E |
| Mute as the stringless harpsichord | E |
| - | |
| The boldest hesitate to tread | E |
| Those gruesome courts at night | E |
| 'Tis whispered that a spectral form | J |
| Then haunts the lonely height | E |
| For he who built this home apart | E |
| Had stabbed his rival to the heart | E |
| - | |
| Oblivion's boon is vainly sought | E |
| Amid those scenes sublime | K |
| Forever lurked within his breast | E |
| The nemesis of crime | K |
| Not all that flood of limpid spray | G |
| Could wash the fatal stain away | G |
| - | |
| Yet certain fearless souls have dwelt | E |
| Within that haunted pile | L |
| Among them she whose portrait still | M |
| With enigmatic smile | L |
| Lights up the mansion like a gem | N |
| Set in a tarnished diadem | N |
| - | |
| The princess at whose thrilling call | O |
| Unnumbered patriots rose | P |
| To drive from fettered Lombardy | E |
| Her immemorial foes | P |
| A woman loved from sea to sea | Q |
| As Liberty's divinity | Q |
| - | |
| But now the old historic site | E |
| Lives only in the past | E |
| Neglected and untenanted | E |
| Its life is ebbing fast | E |
| Each crumbling step each mossy stone | R |
| Is marked by Ruin for her own | R |
| - | |
| Yet one mysterious charm abides | S |
| The spring whose ebb and flow | T |
| Were praised in Pliny's classic prose | P |
| Two thousand years ago | T |
| A fountain whose perennial grace | U |
| Millenniums could not efface | U |
| - | |
| Thrice daily in their polished cup | V |
| Its crystal waters sink | W |
| Thrice daily do they rise again | X |
| And overflow the brink | W |
| Since Pliny's day no more no less | Y |
| Unchanged in rhythmic loveliness | Y |
| - | |
| Sweet Larian lake and sylvan cliffs | Y |
| Cascade and storied spring | Z |
| Ye are the same as when he loved | E |
| Your varied charms to sing | Z |
| 'Tis man alone who sadly goes | Y |
| The lake remains the fountain flows | Y |
| - | |
| Like drops in its exhaustless flood | E |
| Our little lives emerge | A2 |
| Swirl for an instant and are gone | B2 |
| Sunk by another surge | A2 |
| Whence come they Whither do they go | T |
| O Roman poet dost thou know | T |
John L. Stoddard
(1)
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