The Tombs Of The Kings Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AA BB CC DD EE FF GG HH II DD JJ KK LM BB NN OO PP OO QQ FF OO OO RR NN OO SS TT RR OO PP RR GO OO GG RR RR FF UU VV OO OO PP RR RR RR OOWhere the mummied Kings of Egypt wrapped in linen fold on fold | A |
Couched for ages in their coffins crowned with crowns of dusky gold | A |
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Lie in subterranean chambers biding to the day of doom | B |
Counterfeit life's hollow semblance in each mazy mountain tomb | B |
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Grisly in their gilded coffins mocking masks of skin and bone | C |
Yet remain in change unchanging balking Nature of her own | C |
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Mured in mighty Mausoleums walled in from the night and day | D |
Lo the mortal Kings of Egypt hold immortal Death at bay | D |
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For so spake the Kings of Egypt those colossal ones whose hand | E |
Held the peoples from Pitasa to the Kheta's conquered land | E |
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Who with flash and clash of lances and war chariots stormed and won | F |
Many a town of stiff necked Syria to high towering Askalon | F |
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We have been the faithful stewards of the deathless gods on high | G |
We have built them starry temples underneath the starry sky | G |
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We have smitten rebel nations as a child is whipped with rods | H |
We the living incarnation of imperishable gods | H |
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Shall we suffer Death to trample us to nothingness and must | I |
We be scattered as the whirlwind blows about the desert dust | I |
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No Death shall not dare come near us nor Corruption shall not lay | D |
Hands upon our sacred bodies incorruptible as day | D |
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Let us put a bit and bridle and rein in Time's headlong course | J |
Let us ride him through the ages as a master rides his horse | J |
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On the changing earth unchanging let us bide till Time shall end | K |
Till reborn in blest Osiris mortal with Immortal blend | K |
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Yea so spake the Kings of Egypt they whose lightest word was law | L |
At whose nod the far off nations cowered stricken dumb with awe | M |
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And Fate left the haughty rulers to work out their monstrous doom | B |
And embalmed with myrrh and ointments they were carried to the tomb | B |
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Through the gate of Bab el Molouk where the sulphur hills lie bare | N |
Where no green thing casts a shadow in the noon's tremendous glare | N |
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Where the unveiled Blue of heaven in its bare intensity | O |
Weighs upon the awe struck spirit with the world's immensity | O |
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Through the Vale of Desolation where no beast or bird draws breath | P |
To the Coffin Hills of Tuat the Metropolis of Death | P |
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Down down down into the darkness where on either hand dread Fate | O |
In the semblance of a serpent watches by the dolorous gate | O |
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Down down down into the darkness where no gleam of sun or star | Q |
Sheds its purifying radiance from the living world afar | Q |
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Where in labyrinthine windings darkly hidden down and down | F |
Proudly on his marble pillow with old Egypt's double crown | F |
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And his mien of cold commandment grasping still his staff of state | O |
Rests the mightiest of the Pharaohs whom the world surnamed the Great | O |
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Swathed in fine Sidonian linen crossed hands folded on the breast | O |
There the mummied Kings of Egypt lie within each painted chest | O |
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And upon their dusky foreheads Pleiades of flaming gems | R |
Glowing through the nether darkness flash from luminous diadems | R |
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Where is Memphis Like a Mirage melted into empty air | N |
But these royal gems yet sparkle richly on their raven hair | N |
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Where is Thebes in all her glory with her gates of beaten gold | O |
Where Syen or that marvel Heliopolis of old | O |
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Where is Edfu Where Abydos Where those pillared towns of yore | S |
Whose auroral temples glittered by the Nile's thick peopled shore | S |
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Gone as evanescent cloudlands Alplike in the afterglow | T |
But these Kings hold fast their bodies of four thousand years ago | T |
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Sealed up in their Mausoleums in the bowels of the hills | R |
There they hide from dissolution and Death's swiftly grinding mills | R |
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Scattering fire Ur us serpents guard the Tombs' tremendous gate | O |
While Troth holds the trembling balance weighs the heart and seals its fate | O |
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And a multitude of mummies in the swaddling clothes of death | P |
Ferried o'er the sullen river on and on still hasteneth | P |
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And around them and above them blazoned on the rocky walls | R |
Crowned with stars enlaced by serpents in divine processionals | R |
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Ibis headed jackal featured vulture hooded pass on high | G |
Gods on gods through Time's perspectives pilgrims of Eternity | O |
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There revealed by fitful flashes in a gloom that may be felt | O |
Wild Chim ras flash from darkness glittering like Orion's belt | O |
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And on high o'er shining waters in their barks the gods sail by | G |
In the Sunboat and the Moonboat rowed across the rose hued sky | G |
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Night that was before Creation watches sphinx like starred with eyes | R |
And the hours and days are passing and the years and centuries | R |
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But these mummied Kings of Egypt pictures of a perished race | R |
Lie of Death forgotten face by immemorial face | R |
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Though the glorious sun above them burning on the naked plain | F |
Clothes the empty wilderness with the golden glowing grain | F |
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Though the balmy Moon above them floating in the milky Blue | U |
Fills the empty wildernesses with a silver fall of dew | U |
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Though life comes and flies unresting like the shadow which a dove | V |
Casts upon the Sphinx in passing for a moment from above | V |
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Still these mummied Kings of Egypt wrapped in linen fold on fold | O |
Bide through the ages in their coffins crowned with crowns of dusky gold | O |
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Had the sun once brushed them lightly or a breath of air they must | O |
Instantaneously have crumbled into evanescent dust | O |
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Pale and passive in their prisons they have conquered chained to death | P |
And their lineaments look living now as when they last drew breath | P |
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Have they conquered Oh the pity of those Kings within their tombs | R |
Locked in stony isolation in those petrifying glooms | R |
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Motionless where all is motion in a rolling Universe | R |
Heaven by answering their prayer turned it to a deadly curse | R |
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Left them fixed where all is fluid in a world of star winged skies | R |
Where in myriad transformations all things pass and nothing dies | R |
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Nothing dies but what is tethered kept when Time would set it free | O |
To fulfil Thought's yearning tension upward through Eternity | O |
Mathilde Blind
(1)
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