Rubens' Hell Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDCEFGFHGEEIEJIKL MLNMEOPOQPMRMROM| VENUS with rosy cloven rump | A |
| And rings of straw bright flying hair | B |
| Looks in the glass that slaves are plying | C |
| Not for her own face floating there | B |
| But for the sly and curious gaze | D |
| Of Rubens through the keyhole prying | C |
| Warm flesh of gods by light embayed | E |
| And drifting daemon bones within | F |
| That sweep like music up and down | G |
| To pouts and cups of ivory skin | F |
| Firm valleyed croup and swagging arm | H |
| In whose embankment bracelets drown | G |
| Do you remain you strokes of paint | E |
| With Venus mocked and Rubens dead | E |
| And Beauty sold for an antique | I |
| And microscopes raised up instead | E |
| Still are your old adherents true | J |
| Rubens is there if he could speak | I |
| Rubens is there in your high room | K |
| Rubens it is who blows his breath | L |
| To fix you laughing in the glass | M |
| Who keeps a castle here from death | L |
| While schools go out and fashions fall | N |
| And microscopes and movements pass | M |
| This castle keep of joys conceived | E |
| But never sucked is Rubens' hell | O |
| Is Rubens' limbo cut and won | P |
| From darkness Here he comes to dwell | O |
| Man's heaven is the place he builds | Q |
| By thoughts imagined and things done | P |
| Some choose a paradise of gas | M |
| And some by pious deeds below | R |
| The heavenly butter hatch for flunkeys | M |
| Who dream of nought to nothing go | R |
| Therefore I'd sooner Rubens' hell | O |
| Than go to heaven with the donkeys | M |
Kenneth Slessor
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Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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