Letter To Maria Gisborne Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABBCDEEFFGGAA HHHHIIIJJKKKHHLLHHMM KKNNOOFFHHKKPPHHHQQR RSSKKTRHHUUIIVVWWXAH HYYHHHHRRPZKKXXAAA2A 2B2C2FFXAKKYYD2D2 XAHHE2F2HHHHKKAAG2G2 RRH2H2UUAAI2I2 WJ2AAK2K2L2 RRM2H2AAAADDHHAALLAA GGK2K2K2K2AAN2YH2H2H HK2K2HHAAHHKKHHAYTTF A

The spider spreads her webs whether she beA
In poet's tower cellar or barn or treeA
The silk worm in the dark green mulberry leavesB
His winding sheet and cradle ever weavesB
So I a thing whom moralists call wormC
Sit spinning still round this decaying formD
From the fine threads of rare and subtle thoughtE
No net of words in garish colours wroughtE
To catch the idle buzzers of the dayF
But a soft cell where when that fades awayF
Memory may clothe in wings my living nameG
And feed it with the asphodels of fameG
Which in those hearts which must remember meA
Grow making love an immortalityA
-
-
Whoever should behold me now I wistH
Would think I were a mighty mechanistH
Bent with sublime Archimedean artH
To breathe a soul into the iron heartH
Of some machine portentous or strange ginI
Which by the force of figured spells might winI
Its way over the sea and sport thereinI
For round the walls are hung dread engines suchJ
As Vulcan never wrought for Jove to clutchJ
Ixion or the Titan or the quickK
Wit of that man of God St DominicK
To convince Atheist Turk or HereticK
Or those in philanthropic council metH
Who thought to pay some interest for the debtH
They owed to Jesus Christ for their salvationL
By giving a faint foretaste of damnationL
To Shakespeare Sidney Spenser and the restH
Who made our land an island of the blestH
When lamp like Spain who now relumes her fireM
On Freedom's hearth grew dim with EmpireM
With thumbscrews wheels with tooth and spike and jagK
Which fishers found under the utmost cragK
Of Cornwall and the storm encompassed islesN
Where to the sky the rude sea rarely smilesN
Unless in treacherous wrath as on the mornO
When the exulting elements in scornO
Satiated with destroyed destruction layF
Sleeping in beauty on their mangled preyF
As panthers sleep and other strange and dreadH
Magical forms the brick floor overspreadH
Proteus transformed to metal did not makeK
More figures or more strange nor did he takeK
Such shapes of unintelligible brassP
Or heap himself in such a horrid massP
Of tin and iron not to be understoodH
And forms of unimaginable woodH
To puzzle Tubal Cain and all his broodH
Great screws and cones and wheels and groov d blocksQ
The elements of what will stand the shocksQ
Of wave and wind and time Upon the tableR
More knacks and quips there be than I am ableR
To catalogize in this verse of mineS
A pretty bowl of wood not full of wineS
But quicksilver that dew which the gnomes drinkK
When at their subterranean toil they swinkK
Pledging the demons of the earthquake whoT
Reply to them in lava cry hallooR
And call out to the cities o'er their headH
Roofs towers and shrines the dying and the deadH
Crash through the chinks of earth and then all quaffU
Another rouse and hold their sides and laughU
This quicksilver no gnome has drunk withinI
The walnut bowl it lies vein d and thinI
In colour like the wake of light that stainsV
The Tuscan deep when from the moist moon rainsV
The inmost shower of its white fire the breezeW
Is still blue Heaven smiles over the pale seasW
And in this bowl of quicksilver for IX
Yield to the impulse of an infancyA
Outlasting manhood I have made to floatH
A rude idealism of a paper boatH
A hollow screw with cogs Henry will knowY
The thing I mean and laugh at me if soY
He fears not I should do more mischief NextH
Lie bills and calculations much perplexedH
With steam boats frigates and machinery quaintH
Traced over them in blue and yellow paintH
Then comes a range of mathematicalR
Instruments for plans nautical and staticalR
A heap of rosin a queer broken glassP
With ink in it a china cup that wasZ
What it will never be again I thinkK
A thing from which sweet lips were wont to drinkK
The liquor doctors rail at and which IX
Will quaff in spite of them and when we dieX
We'll toss up who died first of drinking teaA
And cry out 'Heads or tails ' where'er we beA
Near that a dusty paint box some odd hooksA2
A half burnt match an ivory block three booksA2
Where conic sections spherics logarithmsB2
To great Laplace from Saunderson and SimsC2
Lie heaped in their harmonious disarrayF
Of figures disentangle them who mayF
Baron de Tott's Memoirs beside them lieX
And some odd volumes of old chemistryA
Near those a most inexplicable thingK
With lead in the middle I'm conjecturingK
How to make Henry understand but noY
I'll leave as Spenser says with many moY
This secret in the pregnant womb of timeD2
Too vast a matter for so weak a rhymeD2
-
-
And here like some weird Archimage sit IX
Plotting dark spells and devilish engineryA
The self impelling steam wheels of the mindH
Which pump up oaths from clergymen and grindH
The gentle spirit of our meek reviewsE2
Into a powdery foam of salt abuseF2
Ruffling the ocean of their self contentH
I sit and smile or sigh as is my bentH
But not for them Libeccio rushes roundH
With an inconstant and an idle soundH
I heed him more than them the thunder smokeK
Is gathering on the mountains like a cloakK
Folded athwart their shoulders broad and bareA
The ripe corn under the undulating airA
Undulates like an ocean and the vinesG2
Are trembling wide in all their trellised linesG2
The murmur of the awakening sea doth fillR
The empty pauses of the blast the hillR
Looks hoary through the white electric rainH2
And from the glens beyond in sullen strainH2
The interrupted thunder howls aboveU
One chasm of Heaven smiles like the eye of LoveU
On the unquiet world while such things areA
How could one worth your friendship heed the warA
Of worms the shriek of the world's carrion jaysI2
Their censure or their wonder or their praiseI2
-
-
You are not here the quaint witch Memory seesW
In vacant chairs your absent imagesJ2
And points where once you sat and now should beA
But are not I demand if ever weA
Shall meet as then we met and she repliesK2
Veiling in awe her second sighted eyesK2
'I know the past alone but summon homeL2
My sister Hope she speaks of all to come '-
But I an old diviner who knew wellR
Every false verse of that sweet oracleR
Turned to the sad enchantress once againM2
And sought a respite from my gentle painH2
In citing every passage o'er and o'erA
Of our communion how on the sea shoreA
We watched the ocean and the sky togetherA
Under the roof of blue Italian weatherA
How I ran home through last year's thunder stormD
And felt the transverse lightning linger warmD
Upon my cheek and how we often madeH
Feasts for each other where good will outweighedH
The frugal luxury of our country cheerA
As well it might were it less firm and clearA
Than ours must ever be and how we spunL
A shroud of talk to hide us from the sunL
Of this familiar life which seems to beA
But is not or is but quaint mockeryA
Of all we would believe and sadly blameG
The jarring and inexplicable frameG
Of this wrong world and then anatomizeK2
The purposes and thoughts of men whose eyesK2
Were closed in distant years or widely guessK2
The issue of the earth's great businessK2
When we shall be as we no longer areA
Like babbling gossips safe who hear the warA
Of winds and sigh but tremble not or howN2
You listened to some interrupted flowY
Of visionary rhyme in joy and painH2
Struck from the inmost fountains of my brainH2
With little skill perhaps or how we soughtH
Those deepest wells of passion or of thoughtH
Wrought by wise poets in the waste of yearsK2
Staining their sacred waters with our tearsK2
Quenching a thirst ever to be renewedH
Or how I wisest lady then enduedH
The language of a land which now is freeA
And winged with thoughts of truth and majestyA
Flits round the tyrant's sceptre like a cloudH
And bursts the peopled prisons and cries aloudH
'My name is Legion ' that majestic tongueK
Which Calderon over the desert flungK
Of ages and of nations and which foundH
An echo in our hearts and with the soundH
Startled oblivion thou wert then to meA
As is a nurse when inarticulatelyY
A child would talk as its grown parents doT
If living winds the rapid clouds pursueT
If hawks chase doves through the aethereal wayF
Huntsmen the innocent deeA

Percy Bysshe Shelley



Rate:
(1)



Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme

Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation


Write your comment about Letter To Maria Gisborne poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley


 

Recent Interactions*

This poem was read 9 times,

This poem was added to the favorite list by 0 members,

This poem was voted by 0 members.

(* Interactions only in the last 7 days)

New Poems

Popular Poets