Music Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAABBCCADADADEEAEAA FGHIJGHKLKLEMEEMEANN ONEEPEQRRQMEESQETEPU VUUEWECVEHEXVUUVYUZE EEECCEEA2MCEEEEAEESE EB2EEEB2EAC2D2D2C2E2 PPE2VF2F2VG2B2B2G2PE H2CEH2CH2I2I2ECEEECE EPPJ2J2PF2K2CEJ2L2EH 2CK2ESHJ2J2HM2M2HEEL 2CJ2J2CEJ2J2EEN2J2O2 BJ2BO2N2EP2CPP2PCEZE EF2EF2EH2I | A |
MUSIC on the air's edge rides alone | B |
Plumed like empastured Caesars of the sky | A |
With a god's helmet now in the gold dye | A |
Of sunlight the iron cloak the Tuscan stone | B |
Melt to enchanted flesh a voice is blown | B |
Down from the windy pit like a star falling | C |
Men think it is a lost eagle calling | C |
But the fool and the lover know it for Music's cry | A |
He is running with the Valkyrs on a road of manes | D |
Darkness draws back its fur the stars course by | A |
Fighting the windy beaks of hurricanes | D |
To keep their stations in the sky | A |
Away away The little earth light wanes | D |
The moon has drowned herself cold music rings | E |
The battering of a thousand Vulcanals | E |
Hammers the blood a thousand horsemen fly | A |
Belly to air away Now Music sings | E |
Harshly like horns of Tartars blown on high | A |
II | A |
A SHIP in hell marooned | F |
He lies under the mast | G |
Caked with the sticky unguents of the sun | H |
Sluggishly at his wound | I |
The rat Pain biting with bloody teeth | J |
And broken nails is fed at last | G |
The tale is done | H |
Let the shell of bleeding flesh remain | K |
This crusted finery is nothing worth | L |
He flings his body carelessly to Pain | K |
Meat for the earth | L |
Trumpets of godhood The voice of Music sings | E |
Lost in the dark forest riding out | M |
Louder and nearer with triumphant wings | E |
Music and his eternal cavaliers | E |
Now Tristan rises with a mighty shout | M |
Nobody hears | E |
III | A |
O SILENT night dark beach | N |
Drowning like lovers each in each | N |
Uncharge thy musky boughs unbend | O |
Thy mouths of air and give them speech | N |
Then like a nest of thieves | E |
The golden tattling leaves | E |
Will sell their mask for bravoes' love | P |
Or cry their fruit to stranger Eves | E |
And voices ride | Q |
By foam and field | R |
Of drowsy lovers lips unsealed | R |
Blown to the lazy tide | Q |
'With love we put the planets out | M |
With kissing drowned the bells | E |
And struck the clambering moon to ice | E |
Now we shall sleep and hide ' | S |
I sang with Nonie side by side | Q |
Sunk in a drift of tumbled laces | E |
Till Music breathed his enormous flute | T |
Over our small upturned faces | E |
IV | P |
IN the pans of straw coned country | U |
This river is the solitary traveller | V |
Nothing else moves the sky lies empty | U |
Birds there are none and cattle not many | U |
Now it is sunlight what is the difference | E |
Nothing The sun is as white as moonlight | W |
Wind has buffeted flat the grasses | E |
Long long ago but now there is nothing | C |
Wind gone and men gone only the water | V |
Stumbling over the stones in silence | E |
Nothing but fields with roots gone rotten | H |
Paddocks unploughed and clotted marshes | E |
Even the wind that stirred them has vanished | X |
Only the river remains with its water | V |
Shambling over the straw coned country | U |
Nothing else moves the sky lies empty | U |
Only the river remains with its water | V |
And droughts will come | Y |
V | U |
IN and out the countryfolk the carriages and carnival | Z |
Pastry cooks in all directions push to barter their confections | E |
Trays of little gilded cakes caramels in painted flakes | E |
Marzipan of various makes and macaroons of all complexions | E |
Riding on a tide of country faces | E |
Up and down the smoke and crying | C |
Girls with apple eyes are flying | C |
Country boys in costly braces | E |
Run with red pneumatic faces | E |
Trumpets gleam whistles scream | A2 |
Organs cough their coloured steam out | M |
Dogs are worming sniffing squirming | C |
Air balloons and paper moons | E |
Roundabouts with curdled tunes | E |
Drowned bassoons and waggon jacks | E |
Tents like flowers of candle wax | E |
'Buy buy buy buy | A |
Cotton ties cakes and pies what a size test your eyes hairdyes | E |
candy shies all a prize penny tries no lies watch it rise | E |
buy buy buy buy ' | S |
So everybody buys | E |
Gently the doctor of magic mutters | E |
Opens his puppet stall | B2 |
Pulls back the painted shutters | E |
Ruffles the golden lace | E |
Ha The crowd flutters | E |
Reddened and sharp and small | B2 |
O Petroushka's face | E |
VI | A |
TORCHES and running fire the flagstones drip | C2 |
Like a black mirror wet from killing Smoke goes up | D2 |
Clouding the gilded rafter birds and the flying cup | D2 |
That floats with magic wine to Konchak's lip | C2 |
Then the Khan claps his beard and harps are brushed | E2 |
Clear in the darkness dancers' bells far off | P |
Blab at their ankles Now from the gold trough | P |
We have dipped bowls of mare's milk all is hushed | E2 |
Suddenly dull bubbling drums uprise grow thicker | V |
Split with a scream of metal glazed in the flare | F2 |
Tartar girls rapidly whirl in storms of animal hair | F2 |
Spinning in islands of movement quicker and quicker | V |
In the middle of the dance smiling at his whim | G2 |
Khan Konchak rose and left the golden hall | B2 |
Soon there was silent darkness over all | B2 |
One of the dancers was sent after him | G2 |
VII | P |
IN the apple country in the apple trees | E |
The boughs are bubbling with pink snow | H2 |
To frost the fields A thousand birds fall crying | C |
Sharp and sweet like morning stars in seas | E |
Deeper than air A thousand blossoms blow | H2 |
Drops of gold blood like flowers gone flying | C |
Drowning with foam the drowsy girls below | H2 |
These country girls in hats of straw | I2 |
Take kissing as a natural law | I2 |
Put up their cheeks like rosy saucers | E |
Gravely on tiptoe waiting | C |
They plainly do not know the dangers | E |
This practice breeds from courteous strangers | E |
Who find on airing their politeness | E |
Such local customs captivating | C |
As for my part under the trees | E |
I found a girl with tawny knees | E |
Pretty enough at a hurried view | P |
We lay on blossoms glassed with dew | P |
I didn't notice her till we kissed | J2 |
How pleasant a sentimentalist | J2 |
VIII | P |
OPEN It is the moon knocking with fists of air | F2 |
To break thy doors down it is the lusty moon | K2 |
More clamorous than hunting cries come tramping | C |
With lanterns to uprouse thee drown the fields | E |
In drifts of crystal waken the farms with light | J2 |
And lovers call to buffet the rough smoke | L2 |
From valleys rising up then like the juice | E |
Of Juno's apples the rich Indian glow | H2 |
Shall cast them out of Time and all be running | C |
Dancing and kissing in this headlong breathless moon | K2 |
This moon pulling at old hinges bawling through keyholes | E |
Crying out 'Siegmund Siegmund Siegmund ' | S |
The door flies open | H |
In this house there is anger in the forest night | J2 |
But love is under my laughter and under my cloak flight | J2 |
O hast thou not yet woken | H |
In night there is bitterness in sorrow tears to weep | M2 |
But love is under my music and under my cloak sleep | M2 |
O Lady hast thou spoken | H |
In tears there is remembering in memory no release | E |
But love is under my kissing and under my cloak peace | E |
O hide beneath my cloak | L2 |
So shall we steal into the deeps of Spring | C |
Clasped each to each and swim the merry tide | J2 |
Rounding the world on the green floods astride | J2 |
Till drowned in a bubble of flowers too dazed to cling | C |
We're thrown up pink and naked castaways | E |
On some old beach where Time is put to rout | J2 |
And the world a buried star not talked about | J2 |
So shall we daunt the gods conceal their gaze | E |
IX | E |
ONCE at your words I would have struck to flame | N2 |
The ground I strode on all the hives of blood | J2 |
Gone bursting mad but now congealed and thick | O2 |
Anger the wine chokes me hoods me with stone | B |
Clogs and corrodes me with its marish flood | J2 |
Suddenly as though to metal grown | B |
I stand immovable feel strangely sick | O2 |
And hear your voice far off crying my name | N2 |
The clouds dissolve Now I can see your face | E |
Immense and sweating the room has fallen in | P2 |
Tiny beside it your face immense and sweating | C |
Blurred into mockery at the words that fill you | P |
Come then You wish to crush me Let us begin | P2 |
Since it is obvious I shall have to kill you | P |
Have done with useless voices and regretting | C |
I want to get it over and leave this place | E |
Then like some god on a stone pedestal | Z |
Who stirs by night with unfamiliar limbs | E |
I turn to an automation upraise | E |
Half wondering an arm I find in the air | F2 |
Clammy with grappled iron Everything swims | E |
Fogged in the coughing gas light Blindly I stare | F2 |
And stab once or twice stabbing in a daze | E |
No | H2 |
Kenneth Slessor
(1)
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