Epipsychidion (excerpt) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBCCDDAAEFGGAAHIJKL LMMNNCCOOPQPRRSSTTTT TTUUVVWXYYTPZLPPA2A2 B2C2PPPD2PPPPTTTAAE2 E2TTBF2PPG2G2G2TTPPW WD2PPPTTD2PE2E2TTYYP P PPPPF2F2AAPPD2PPPAAP PTTPPUUA2A2AAPPPPPPP PTTH2H2UUUTTVI2PD2PP PPTTTTPPXXPPJ2J2AAPJ 2Emily | A |
A ship is floating in the harbour now | B |
A wind is hovering o'er the mountain's brow | B |
There is a path on the sea's azure floor | C |
No keel has ever plough'd that path before | C |
The halcyons brood around the foamless isles | D |
The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles | D |
The merry mariners are bold and free | A |
Say my heart's sister wilt thou sail with me | A |
Our bark is as an albatross whose nest | E |
Is a far Eden of the purple East | F |
And we between her wings will sit while Night | G |
And Day and Storm and Calm pursue their flight | G |
Our ministers along the boundless Sea | A |
Treading each other's heels unheededly | A |
It is an isle under Ionian skies | H |
Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise | I |
And for the harbours are not safe and good | J |
This land would have remain'd a solitude | K |
But for some pastoral people native there | L |
Who from the Elysian clear and golden air | L |
Draw the last spirit of the age of gold | M |
Simple and spirited innocent and bold | M |
The blue Aegean girds this chosen home | N |
With ever changing sound and light and foam | N |
Kissing the sifted sands and caverns hoar | C |
And all the winds wandering along the shore | C |
Undulate with the undulating tide | O |
There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide | O |
And many a fountain rivulet and pond | P |
As clear as elemental diamond | Q |
Or serene morning air and far beyond | P |
The mossy tracks made by the goats and deer | R |
Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year | R |
Pierce into glades caverns and bowers and halls | S |
Built round with ivy which the waterfalls | S |
Illumining with sound that never fails | T |
Accompany the noonday nightingales | T |
And all the place is peopled with sweet airs | T |
The light clear element which the isle wears | T |
Is heavy with the scent of lemon flowers | T |
Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers | T |
And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep | U |
And from the moss violets and jonquils peep | U |
And dart their arrowy odour through the brain | V |
Till you might faint with that delicious pain | V |
And every motion odour beam and tone | W |
With that deep music is in unison | X |
Which is a soul within the soul they seem | Y |
Like echoes of an antenatal dream | Y |
It is an isle 'twixt Heaven Air Earth and Sea | T |
Cradled and hung in clear tranquillity | P |
Bright as that wandering Eden Lucifer | Z |
Wash'd by the soft blue Oceans of young air | L |
It is a favour'd place Famine or Blight | P |
Pestilence War and Earthquake never light | P |
Upon its mountain peaks blind vultures they | A2 |
Sail onward far upon their fatal way | A2 |
The wing egrave d storms chanting their thunder psalm | B2 |
To other lands leave azure chasms of calm | C2 |
Over this isle or weep themselves in dew | P |
From which its fields and woods ever renew | P |
Their green and golden immortality | P |
And from the sea there rise and from the sky | D2 |
There fall clear exhalations soft and bright | P |
Veil after veil each hiding some delight | P |
Which Sun or Moon or zephyr draw aside | P |
Till the isle's beauty like a naked bride | P |
Glowing at once with love and loveliness | T |
Blushes and trembles at its own excess | T |
Yet like a buried lamp a Soul no less | T |
Burns in the heart of this delicious isle | A |
An atom of th' Eternal whose own smile | A |
Unfolds itself and may be felt not seen | E2 |
O'er the gray rocks blue waves and forests green | E2 |
Filling their bare and void interstices | T |
But the chief marvel of the wilderness | T |
Is a lone dwelling built by whom or how | B |
None of the rustic island people know | F2 |
'Tis not a tower of strength though with its height | P |
It overtops the woods but for delight | P |
Some wise and tender Ocean King ere crime | G2 |
Had been invented in the world's young prime | G2 |
Rear'd it a wonder of that simple time | G2 |
An envy of the isles a pleasure house | T |
Made sacred to his sister and his spouse | T |
It scarce seems now a wreck of human art | P |
But as it were Titanic in the heart | P |
Of Earth having assum'd its form then grown | W |
Out of the mountains from the living stone | W |
Lifting itself in caverns light and high | D2 |
For all the antique and learned imagery | P |
Has been eras'd and in the place of it | P |
The ivy and the wild vine interknit | P |
The volumes of their many twining stems | T |
Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems | T |
The lampless halls and when they fade the sky | D2 |
Peeps through their winter woof of tracery | P |
With moonlight patches or star atoms keen | E2 |
Or fragments of the day's intense serene | E2 |
Working mosaic on their Parian floors | T |
And day and night aloof from the high towers | T |
And terraces the Earth and Ocean seem | Y |
To sleep in one another's arms and dream | Y |
Of waves flowers clouds woods rocks and all that we | P |
Read in their smiles and call reality | P |
- | |
This isle and house are mine and I have vow'd | P |
Thee to be lady of the solitude | P |
And I have fitted up some chambers there | P |
Looking towards the golden Eastern air | P |
And level with the living winds which flow | F2 |
Like waves above the living waves below | F2 |
I have sent books and music there and all | A |
Those instruments with which high Spirits call | A |
The future from its cradle and the past | P |
Out of its grave and make the present last | P |
In thoughts and joys which sleep but cannot die | D2 |
Folded within their own eternity | P |
Our simple life wants little and true taste | P |
Hires not the pale drudge Luxury to waste | P |
The scene it would adorn and therefore still | A |
Nature with all her children haunts the hill | A |
The ring dove in the embowering ivy yet | P |
Keeps up her love lament and the owls flit | P |
Round the evening tower and the young stars glance | T |
Between the quick bats in their twilight dance | T |
The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight | P |
Before our gate and the slow silent night | P |
Is measur'd by the pants of their calm sleep | U |
Be this our home in life and when years heap | U |
Their wither'd hours like leaves on our decay | A2 |
Let us become the overhanging day | A2 |
The living soul of this Elysian isle | A |
Conscious inseparable one Meanwhile | A |
We two will rise and sit and walk together | P |
Under the roof of blue Ionian weather | P |
And wander in the meadows or ascend | P |
The mossy mountains where the blue heavens bend | P |
With lightest winds to touch their paramour | P |
Or linger where the pebble paven shore | P |
Under the quick faint kisses of the sea | P |
Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy | P |
Possessing and possess'd by all that is | T |
Within that calm circumference of bliss | T |
And by each other till to love and live | H2 |
Be one or at the noontide hour arrive | H2 |
Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep | U |
The moonlight of the expir'd night asleep | U |
Through which the awaken'd day can never peep | U |
A veil for our seclusion close as night's | T |
Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights | T |
Sleep the fresh dew of languid love the rain | V |
Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again | I2 |
And we will talk until thought's melody | P |
Become too sweet for utterance and it die | D2 |
In words to live again in looks which dart | P |
With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart | P |
Harmonizing silence without a sound | P |
Our breath shall intermix our bosoms bound | P |
And our veins beat together and our lips | T |
With other eloquence than words eclipse | T |
The soul that burns between them and the wells | T |
Which boil under our being's inmost cells | T |
The fountains of our deepest life shall be | P |
Confus'd in Passion's golden purity | P |
As mountain springs under the morning sun | X |
We shall become the same we shall be one | X |
Spirit within two frames oh wherefore two | P |
One passion in twin hearts which grows and grew | P |
Till like two meteors of expanding flame | J2 |
Those spheres instinct with it become the same | J2 |
Touch mingle are transfigur'd ever still | A |
Burning yet ever inconsumable | A |
In one another's substance finding food | P |
Like flames too pure and light and unimbu | J2 |
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1)
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