Earth-visitors Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLCKMNOPQR STUDVWXXXYZSA2B2C2D2 QKE2F2JG2H2BA2I2OQKJ 2J2K2XXTo N L | A |
THERE were strange riders once came gusting down | B |
Cloaked in dark furs with faces grave and sweet | C |
And white as air None knew them they were strangers | D |
Princes gone feasting barons with gipsy eyes | E |
And names that rang like viols perchance who knows | F |
Kings of old Tartary forgotten swept from Asia | G |
Blown on raven chargers across the world | H |
For ever smiling sadly in their beards | I |
And stamping abruptly into courtyards at midnight | J |
Post boys would run lanterns hang frostily horses fume | K |
The strangers wake the Inn Men staring outside | L |
Past watery glass thick panes could watch them eat | C |
Dyed with gold vapours in the candleflame | K |
Clapping their gloves and stuck with crusted stones | M |
Their garments foreign their talk a strange tongue | N |
But sweet as pineapple it was Archdukes they must be | O |
In daylight nothing only their prints remained | P |
Bitten in snow They'd gone no one knew where | Q |
Or when or by what road no one could guess | R |
None but some sleepy girls half tangled in dreams | S |
Mixing up miracle and desire laughing at first | T |
Then staring with bright eyes at their beds opening their lips | U |
Plucking a crushed gold feather in their fingers | D |
And laughing again eyes closed But one remembered | V |
Between strange kisses and cambric in the dark | W |
That unearthly beard had lifted 'Your name child ' | X |
'Sophia sir and what to call your Grace ' | X |
Like a bubble of gilt he had laughed 'Mercury ' | X |
It is long now since great daemons walked on earth | Y |
Staining with wild radiance a country bed | Z |
And leaving only a confusion of sharp dreams | S |
To vex a farm girl that and perhaps a feather | A2 |
Some thread of the Cloth of Gold a scale of metal | B2 |
Caught in her hair The unpastured Gods have gone | C2 |
They are above those fiery coasted clouds | D2 |
Floating like fins of stone in the burnt air | Q |
And earth is only a troubled thought to them | K |
That sometimes drifts like wind across the bodies | E2 |
Of the sky's women | F2 |
There is one yet comes knocking in the night | J |
The drums of sweet conspiracy on the pane | G2 |
When darkness has arched his hands over the bush | H2 |
And Springwood steams with dew and the stars look down | B |
On that one lonely chamber | A2 |
She is there suddenly lit by no torch or moon | I2 |
But by the shining of her naked body | O |
Her breasts are berries broken in snow her hair | Q |
Blows in a gold rain over and over them | K |
She flings her kisses like warm guineas of love | J2 |
And when she walks the stars walk with her above | J2 |
She knocks The door swings open shuts again | K2 |
'Your name child ' | X |
A thousand birds cry 'Venus ' | X |
Kenneth Slessor
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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