Malaria Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ KLKL MNMN OPOP QHQH| He lurks among the reeds beside the marsh | A |
| Red oleanders twisted in His hair | B |
| His eyes are haggard and His lips are harsh | A |
| Upon His breast the bones show gaunt and bare | B |
| - | |
| The green and stagnant waters lick His feet | C |
| And from their filmy iridescent scum | D |
| Clouds of mosquitoes gauzy in the heat | C |
| Rise with His gifts Death and Delirium | D |
| - | |
| His messengers They bear the deadly taint | E |
| On spangled wings aloft and far away | F |
| Making thin music strident and yet faint | E |
| From golden eve to silver break of day | F |
| - | |
| The baffled sleeper hears th' incessant whine | G |
| Through his tormented dreams and finds no rest | H |
| The thirsty insects use his blood for wine | G |
| Probe his blue veins and pasture on his breast | H |
| - | |
| While far away He in the marshes lies | I |
| Staining the stagnant water with His breath | J |
| An endless hunger burning in His eyes | I |
| A famine unassuaged whose food is Death | J |
| - | |
| He hides among the ghostly mists that float | K |
| Over the water weird and white and chill | L |
| And peasants passing in their laden boat | K |
| Shiver and feel a sense of coming ill | L |
| - | |
| A thousand burn and die He takes no heed | M |
| Their bones unburied strewn upon the plain | N |
| Only increase the frenzy of His greed | M |
| To add more victims to th' already slain | N |
| - | |
| He loves the haggard frame the shattered mind | O |
| Gloats with delight upon the glazing eye | P |
| Yet in one thing His cruelty is kind | O |
| He sends them lovely dreams before they die | P |
| - | |
| Dreams that bestow on them their heart's desire | Q |
| Visions that find them mad and leave them blest | H |
| To sink forgetful of the fever's fire | Q |
| Softly as in a lover's arms to rest | H |
Laurence Hope (adela Florence Cory Nicolson)
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