A Tale Of Society As It Is: From Facts, 1811 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCCDEEFEGHI AJEAAKLMNMNN AOPPQREASASTT RURRRUNNKNVWW RXYYYXZNA2NA2CC RB2C2C2C2B2LLRLRD2D2 RC2KKKC2E2E2R| I | A |
| She was an aged woman and the years | B |
| Which she had numbered on her toilsome way | C |
| Had bowed her natural powers to decay | C |
| She was an aged woman yet the ray | C |
| Which faintly glimmered through her starting tears | D |
| Pressed into light by silent misery | E |
| Hath soul's imperishable energy | E |
| She was a cripple and incapable | F |
| To add one mite to gold fed luxury | E |
| And therefore did her spirit dimly feel | G |
| That poverty the crime of tainting stain | H |
| Would merge her in its depths never to rise again | I |
| - | |
| II | A |
| One only son's love had supported her | J |
| She long had struggled with infirmity | E |
| Lingering to human life scenes for to die | A |
| When fate has spared to rend some mental tie | A |
| Would many wish and surely fewer dare | K |
| But when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced the child | L |
| For his cursed power unhallowed arms to wield | M |
| Bend to another's will become a thing | N |
| More senseless than the sword of battlefield | M |
| Then did she feel keen sorrow's keenest sting | N |
| And many years had passed ere comfort they would bring | N |
| - | |
| III | A |
| For seven years did this poor woman live | O |
| In unparticipated solitude | P |
| Thou mightst have seen her in the forest rude | P |
| Picking the scattered remnants of its wood | Q |
| If human thou mightst then have learned to grieve | R |
| The gleanings of precarious charity | E |
| Her scantiness of food did scarce supply | A |
| The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dwelt | S |
| Within her ghastly hollowness of eye | A |
| Each arrow of the season's change she felt | S |
| Yet still she groans ere yet her race were run | T |
| One only hope it was once more to see her son | T |
| - | |
| IV | R |
| It was an eve of June when every star | U |
| Spoke peace from Heaven to those on earth that live | R |
| She rested on the moor 'Twas such an eve | R |
| When first her soul began indeed to grieve | R |
| Then he was here now he is very far | U |
| The sweetness of the balmy evening | N |
| A sorrow o'er her aged soul did fling | N |
| Yet not devoid of rapture s mingled tear | K |
| A balm was in the poison of the sting | N |
| This aged sufferer for many a year | V |
| Had never felt such comfort She suppressed | W |
| A sigh and turning round clasped William to her breast | W |
| - | |
| V | R |
| And though his form was wasted by the woe | X |
| Which tyrants on their victims love to wreak | Y |
| Though his sunk eyeballs and his faded cheek | Y |
| Of slavery's violence and scorn did speak | Y |
| Yet did the aged woman's bosom glow | X |
| The vital fire seemed re illumed within | Z |
| By this sweet unexpected welcoming | N |
| Oh consummation of the fondest hope | A2 |
| That ever soared on Fancy's wildest wing | N |
| Oh tenderness that foundst so sweet a scope | A2 |
| Prince who dost pride thee on thy mighty sway | C |
| When THOU canst feel such love thou shalt be great as they | C |
| - | |
| VI | R |
| Her son compelled the country's foes had fought | B2 |
| Had bled in battle and the stern control | C2 |
| Which ruled his sinews and coerced his soul | C2 |
| Utterly poisoned life's unmingled bowl | C2 |
| And unsubduable evils on him brought | B2 |
| He was the shadow of the lusty child | L |
| Who when the time of summer season smiled | L |
| Did earn for her a meal of honesty | R |
| And with affectionate discourse beguiled | L |
| The keen attacks of pain and poverty | R |
| Till Power as envying her this only joy | D2 |
| From her maternal bosom tore the unhappy boy | D2 |
| - | |
| VII | R |
| And now cold charity's unwelcome dole | C2 |
| Was insufficient to support the pair | K |
| And they would perish rather than would bear | K |
| The law's stern slavery and the insolent stare | K |
| With which law loves to rend the poor man's soul | C2 |
| The bitter scorn the spirit sinking noise | E2 |
| Of heartless mirth which women men and boys | E2 |
| Wake in this scene of legal misery | R |
| - |
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1)
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