A Pre-existence Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBC DEDFBBDD DGHIDJBBK BDDDBEBBBBI BELMDDDNDBDDOPFIBBDE QORBBR SBD TPUVTDDDBDBW| An intimation of some previous life | A |
| Or dark dream in the present dim divined | B |
| Of some uncertain sleep or lived or dreamed | B |
| In some dead life between a dusk and dawn | C |
| - | |
| From heathen battles to Toledo's gates | D |
| Far off defined his corselet and camail | E |
| Damascened armet shattered in an eve's | D |
| Anger of brass a galloping glitter one | F |
| Rode arrow wounded And the city caught | B |
| A cry before him and a wail behind | B |
| Of walls beleaguered battles conquered kings | D |
| Triumphant Taric broken Spain and slaves | D |
| - | |
| And I a Moslem slave a miser Jew's | D |
| Housed near the Tagus squalid and alone | G |
| Save for his slave held dear to beat and starve | H |
| Leaner than my lank shadow when the moon | I |
| A burning beacon westerns and my bones | D |
| A visible hunger famished with the fear | J |
| Soul garb of slaves I bore him I who held | B |
| Him soul and self more hated than his God | B |
| Stood silent fools had laughed I saw my way | K |
| - | |
| War time crops weapons and the blade I bought | B |
| Was subtly pointed For I knew his ways | D |
| The nightly nuptials of his jars of gems | D |
| And bags of doublas oh I knew his ways | D |
| A shadow woven in the hangings hid | B |
| Till time said now gaunt from the hangings stole | E |
| Behind him humped and stooping so his heart | B |
| Clove through the faded tunic murrey dyed | B |
| Grinned exultation while the grim slow blood | B |
| Drenched black and darkened round the oblong wound | B |
| And his old face thinned grayer than morn's moon | I |
| - | |
| Rubies from Badakhsh n in rose lights dripped | B |
| Slim tears of poppy purple crystal dull | E |
| Red ember pregnant carbuncles wherein | L |
| Fevered a captive crimson bugles wan | M |
| Of cat eyed hyacinths moon emeralds | D |
| With starry greenness stabbed in limpid stains | D |
| Of liquid lilac Persian amethysts | D |
| Fire opals savage and mesmeric with | N |
| Voluptuous flame long sweet and sensuous as | D |
| Soft eyes of Orient women sapphires beamed | B |
| With talismanic violet from tombs | D |
| Deev guarded of primordial Solimans | D |
| Length agonized with fire diamonds of | O |
| Golconda This a sandaled dervise bare | P |
| Seven days beneath a red Arabian sun | F |
| Seven nights beneath a round Arabian moon | I |
| Under his tongue an Emeer's ransom held | B |
| Of some wild tribe Bleached in the perishing waste | B |
| A Bedouin Arab found sand strangled bones | D |
| A skeleton vulture torn fierce in whose skull | E |
| One blazing eye the diamond At Aleppo | Q |
| Bartered a bauble for his desert love | O |
| Jacinth and Indian pearl gem jolting gem | R |
| Flashed rutilating in the irised light | B |
| A rain of splintered fire and his head | B |
| Long haired white sunk among them | R |
| - | |
| Yet I took | S |
| All though his eyes burned in them though meseemed | B |
| Each several jewel glared a separate curse | D |
| - | |
| Well dead men work us mischief from the grave | T |
| Richer than all Castile and yet not dare | P |
| Drink but from cups of Roman murra spar | U |
| Bowl sprayed with fibrile gold spar sensitive | V |
| Of poison I no slave yet all a slave | T |
| To fear a dead fool's malice Still how else | D |
| Feasting within the music of my halls | D |
| While perfumed beauty danced in sinuous robes | D |
| Diaphanous more silken than those famed | B |
| Of loomed Amorgos or of classic Kos | D |
| Draining the unflawed murrhine Xeres brimmed | B |
| Had I reeled poisoned dying wolfsbane slain | W |
Madison Julius Cawein
(1)
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