An Old Tale Re-told Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEEEFGFEHHIIJJKGL G MNMNOOPQQPPRRSTSTIIU GUGVVWXWXYYZA2Z A2IB2B2IB2C2C2 D2E2D2E2D2D2D2F2IG2I KSLS YYH2B2I2B2J2B2J2B2K2 K2A2A2 A2IIA2III2I2A2KL2LL2 A2A2M2M2A2GN2GN2A2O2 A2A2A2O2P2KP2KA2Q2A2 KA2A2Q2A2R2R2A2A2N2N 2S2D2S2D2L2T2 IIU2C2R2C2C2Q2T2Q2T2 EEA2A2A2R2A2R2EEEED2 D2 GIGIGIILLD2ED2EA2EA2 EN2N2QEQEV2R2R2R2V2R 2NW2NW2NYYDD A2A2A2A2A2A2R2 R2B2B2C2C2B2 N2N2NNR2R2NX2NX2R2R2 EEA2GA2G A2A2A2A2A2A2D2A2D2A2 N2A2N2 EENNN2N2A2V2A2V2V2From the terrace here where the hills indent | A |
You can see the uttermost battlement | B |
Of the castle there the Cliffords' home | C |
Where the seasons go and the seasons come | D |
And never a footstep else doth fall | E |
Save the prowling fox's the ancient hall | E |
Echoes no voice save the owlet's call | E |
Its turret chambers are homes for the bat | F |
And its courts are tangled and wild to see | G |
And where in the cellar was once the rat | F |
The viper and toad move stealthily | E |
Long years have passed since the place was burned | H |
And he sailed to the wars in France and earned | H |
The name that he bears of the bold and true | I |
On his tomb Long years since my lord Sir Hugh | I |
Lived and I was his favorite page | J |
And the thing then happened and he of an age | J |
When a man will love and be loved again | K |
Or hie to the wars or a monastery | G |
Or toil till he conquer his heart's sore pain | L |
Or drink and forget it and finally bury | G |
- | |
I was his page And often we fared | M |
Through the Clare demesnes in autumn hawking | N |
If the Baron had known how they would have glared | M |
'Neath their bushy brows those eyes of mocking | N |
That last of the Strongbows Richard I mean | O |
And growling some six of his henchmen lean | O |
To mount and after this Clifford and hang | P |
With his crop eared page to the nearest oak | Q |
How he would have cursed us while he spoke | Q |
For Clare and Clifford had ever a fang | P |
In the other's side And I hear the clang | P |
Of his rage in the hall when the hawker told | R |
If he told how we met on the autumn wold | R |
His daughter sweet Clara of Clare the day | S |
Her hooded tiercel its brails did burst | T |
And trailing its jesses came flying our way | S |
An untrained haggard the falconer cursed | T |
While he tried to secure as the eyas flew | I |
Slant low and heavily over us Hugh | I |
Who saw it coming and had just then cast | U |
His peregrine hawk at a heron quarry | G |
In his saddle rising so as it passed | U |
By the jesses caught and to her did carry | G |
Where she stood near the wood Her face flushed rose | V |
With the glad of the meeting No two foes | V |
Her eyes and my Lord's I swear who saw | W |
'Twas love from the start And I heard him speak | X |
Some words then he knelt and the sombre shaw | W |
With the rust of the autumn waste and bleak | X |
Grew spring with her smile as the hawk she took | Y |
On her lily wrist where it pruned and shook | Y |
Its ragged wings Then I saw him seize | Z |
The hand that she reached to him long and white | A2 |
As she smilingly bade him rise from his knees | Z |
- | |
When he kissed its fingers her eyes grew bright | A2 |
But her cheeks grew pallid when lashing through | I |
The woodland there with a face a flare | B2 |
With the sting of the wind and his gipsy hair | B2 |
Flying the falconer came and two | I |
Or three of the people of Castle Clare | B2 |
And the leaves of the autumn made a frame | C2 |
For the picture there in the morning's flame | C2 |
- | |
What was said in that moment I do not know | D2 |
That moment of meeting between those lovers | E2 |
But whatever it was 't was whispered low | D2 |
And soft as a leaf that swings and hovers | E2 |
A twinkling gold when the leaves are yellow | D2 |
And her face with the joy was still aglow | D2 |
When down through the wood that burly fellow | D2 |
Came with his frown and made a pause | F2 |
In the pulse of their words My lord Sir Hugh | I |
Stood with the soil on his knee No cause | G2 |
Had he but his hanger he partly drew | I |
Then clapped it sharp in its sheath again | K |
And bowed to my Lady and strode away | S |
And mounting his horse with a swinging rein | L |
Rode with a song in his heart all day | S |
- | |
He loved and was loved I knew for look | Y |
All other sports for the chase he forsook | Y |
And strange that he never went to hawk | H2 |
Or hunt but Clara would meet him there | B2 |
In the Strongbow forest I know the rock | I2 |
With its fern filled moss by the bramble lair | B2 |
Were oft and again he met by chance | J2 |
Shall I say the daughter of Clare as fair | B2 |
Of face as a queen in an old romance | J2 |
Who waits with her sweet face pale her hair | B2 |
Night deep and eyes dove gray with dreams | K2 |
By the fountain side where the statue gleams | K2 |
And the moonbeam lolls in the lily white | A2 |
For the knightly lover who comes at night | A2 |
- | |
Heigho they ceased those meetings I wot | A2 |
Betrayed to the Baron by some of his crew | I |
Of menials who followed and saw and knew | I |
For she loved too well to have once forgot | A2 |
The time and the place of their trysting true | I |
Why and when would ask Sir Hugh | I |
In the labored letters he used to lock | I2 |
The lovers' post in a coigne of that rock | I2 |
She used to answer but now did not | A2 |
But nearing Yule love got them again | K |
A twilight tryst through frowardness sure | L2 |
They met And that day was gray with rain | L |
Or snow and the wind did ever endure | L2 |
A long bleak moaning thorough the wood | A2 |
That chapped i' the cheek and smarted the blood | A2 |
And a brook in the forest went throb and throb | M2 |
And over it all was the wild beast sob | M2 |
Of the rushing boughs like a thing pursued | A2 |
And then it was that he learned how she | G |
God's blood how it makes my old limbs quiver | N2 |
To think what a miserable tyrant he | G |
The Baron Richard aye and ever | N2 |
To his daughter was forsooth must wed | A2 |
With an eastern earl a Lovell to whom | O2 |
Would God o' his mercy had struck him dead | A2 |
Clara of Clare when only a child | A2 |
With a face like a flower that blooms in the wild | A2 |
Of the hills and a soul like its soft perfume | O2 |
Was given to seal or strengthen some ties | P2 |
Of power and wealth say bartered then | K |
Like the merest chattel With tearful eyes | P2 |
And trembling lips she spoke and when | K |
Her lover the Clifford had learned and heard | A2 |
He'd have had her flee with him then 'sdeath | Q2 |
In spite of them all Let her speak the word | A2 |
They would fly together the Baron's men | K |
Might follow and if and he touched his sword | A2 |
It should answer But she while she seemed to stay | A2 |
With a hand on her bosom her heart's quick breath | Q2 |
Replied to his heat They would take and slay | A2 |
Thee who art life of me No not thus | R2 |
Shall we fly there's another way for us | R2 |
A way that is sure an only way | A2 |
I have thought it out this many a day | A2 |
The words that she spoke how well I remember | N2 |
As well as the mood o' that day of December | N2 |
That bullied and blustered and seemed in league | S2 |
Like a spiteful shrew with the wind and snow | D2 |
To drown the words of their sweet intrigue | S2 |
With the boom of the boughs tossed to and fro | D2 |
Her last words these By curfew sure | L2 |
On Christmas eve at the postern door | T2 |
- | |
And we were there with a led horse too | I |
Armed for a journey I hardly knew | I |
Whither but why you well can guess | U2 |
For often he whispered a certain name | C2 |
The talisman of his happiness | R2 |
That warmed his blood like a yule log's flame | C2 |
While we waited there till its owner came | C2 |
We saw how the castle's baronial girth | Q2 |
Like a giant's loosed for reveling more | T2 |
Shone and we heard the wassail and mirth | Q2 |
Where the mistletoe hung in the hearth's red roar | T2 |
And the holly brightened the weaponed wall | E |
Of ancient oak in the banqueting hall | E |
And the spits I trow by the scullions turned | A2 |
O'er the snoring logs rich steamed and burned | A2 |
While the whole wild boar and the deer were roasted | A2 |
And the half of an ox and the roe buck haunches | R2 |
While tuns of ale that the cellars boasted | A2 |
And casks of sack were broached for paunches | R2 |
Of vassals who reveled in stable and hall | E |
The song of the minstrel the yeomen's quarrel | E |
O'er the dice and the drink and the huntsman's bawl | E |
In the baying kennels its hounds a snarl | E |
O'er the bones of the banquet now loud now low | D2 |
We could hear where we crouched in the drifting snow | D2 |
- | |
Was she long did she come By the postern we | G |
Like shadows waited My lord Sir Hugh | I |
Spoke pointing a tower That casement see | G |
When a stealthy light in its slit burns blue | I |
And signals thrice slowly thus 't is she | G |
And close to his breast his gaberdine drew | I |
For the wind it whipped and the snow beat through | I |
Did she come We had waited an hour or twain | L |
When the taper flashed in the central pane | L |
And flourished three times and vanished so | D2 |
And under the arch of the postern's portal | E |
Holding the horses we stood in the snow | D2 |
Stiff with the cold Ah me immortal | E |
Minutes we waited breath bated and listened | A2 |
Shivering there in the hiss of the gale | E |
The parapets whistled the angles glistened | A2 |
And the night around seemed one black wail | E |
Of death whose ominous presence over | N2 |
The stormy battlements seemed to hover | N2 |
Said my lord Sir Hugh to himself he spoke | Q |
She feels for the spring in the sliding panel | E |
'Neath the arras hid in the carven oak | Q |
It opens The stair like a well's dark channel | E |
Yawns and the draught makes her taper slope | V2 |
Wrapped deep in her mantle she stoops now puts | R2 |
One foot on the stair now a listening pause | R2 |
As nearer and nearer the mad search draws | R2 |
Of the thwarted castle No smallest hope | V2 |
That they find her now that the panel shuts | R2 |
If the wind that howls like a tortured thing | N |
Would throttle itself with itself then I | W2 |
Might hear how her hurrying footsteps ring | N |
Down the hollow there 't is her fingers try | W2 |
The postern's bolts that the rust makes cling | N |
But ever some whim of the storm that shook | Y |
A clanging ring or a creaking hook | Y |
In buttress or wall And we waited numb | D |
With the cold till dawn but she did not come | D |
- | |
I must tell you why and have done 'T is said | A2 |
On the brink of the marriage she fled the side | A2 |
Of the guests and the bridegroom there she fled | A2 |
With a mischievous laugh I'll hide I'll hide | A2 |
Seek and be sure that you find so led | A2 |
A long search after her but defied | A2 |
All search for a score and ten long years | R2 |
- | |
Well the laughter of Yule was turned to tears | R2 |
For them and for us We saw the glare | B2 |
Of torches that hurried from chamber to stair | B2 |
And we heard the castle re echo her name | C2 |
But neither to them nor to us she came | C2 |
And that was the last of Clara of Clare | B2 |
- | |
That winter it was a month thereafter | N2 |
That the home of the Cliffords roof and rafter | N2 |
Burned I could swear 't was the Strongbow's doing | N |
Were I sure that he knew of the Clifford's wooing | N |
His daughter and so by the Rood and Cross | R2 |
Had burned Hugh's home to avenge his loss | R2 |
So over the channel to France with his King | N |
The Black Prince sailed to the wars to deaden | X2 |
The ache of the mystery Hugh that spring | N |
And fell at Poitiers for his loss made leaden | X2 |
His heart and his life was a weary sadness | R2 |
So he flung it away in a moment's madness | R2 |
And the Baron died And the bridegroom well | E |
Unlucky was he in truth to tell | E |
Of him there is nothing The Baron died | A2 |
The last of the Strongbows he gramercy | G |
And the Clare estate with its wealth and pride | A2 |
Devolved to the Bloets Walter and Percy | G |
- | |
And years went by And it happened that they | A2 |
Ransacked the old castle and so one day | A2 |
In a lonesome tower uprummaged a chest | A2 |
From Flanders of ebon and wildly carved | A2 |
All over with things a sinister crest | A2 |
And evil faces distorted and starved | A2 |
Fast locked with a spring which they forced and lo | D2 |
When they opened it Death like a lady dressed | A2 |
Grinned up at their terror but no not so | D2 |
A skeleton jeweled and laced and wreathed | A2 |
With flowers of dust and a miniver | N2 |
Around it clasped that the ruin sheathed | A2 |
Of a once rich raiment of silk and fur | N2 |
- | |
I'd have given my life to hear him tell | E |
The courtly Clifford how this befell | E |
He'd have known how it was For you see in groping | N |
For the secret spring of that panel hoping | N |
And fearing as nearer and nearer drew | N2 |
The search of retainers why out she blew | N2 |
The tell tale taper and seeing this chest | A2 |
Would hide her a minute in it mayhap | V2 |
Till the hurry had passed but the death lock pressed | A2 |
By the lid's great weight closed fast with a snap | V2 |
Ere her heart was aware of the fiendish trap | V2 |
Madison Julius Cawein
(1)
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