Queen Mab: Part Iv. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCCCDCEFCGHICJCGKL CCMNCOGGPQRCCST UVCFCGWKXYCZCJGZUGUA 2YGB2KCG C2VCGCGGD2CCZCR E2GCCQCQF2CCGFGCCCGC GG2 CCCSH2HOCKQCXI2UG FIGGCJ2GCK2GIGCCL2GM 2C GCN2CCGJ2FO2GGCCCB2G CP2 CQ2CCOCGCWGCGGGG GWN2CCFGJ2FGCGQA2 CCGPJCGR2S2F

'How beautiful this night the balmiest sighA
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's earB
Were discord to the speaking quietudeC
That wraps this moveless scene Heaven's ebon vaultC
Studded with stars unutterably brightC
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rollsD
Seems like a canopy which love had spreadC
To curtain her sleeping world Yon gentle hillsE
Robed in a garment of untrodden snowF
Yon darksome rocks whence icicles dependC
So stainless that their white and glittering spiresG
Tinge not the moon's pure beam yon castled steepH
Whose banner hangeth o'er the time worn towerI
So idly that rapt fancy deemeth itC
A metaphor of peace all form a sceneJ
Where musing solitude might love to liftC
Her soul above this sphere of earthlinessG
Where silence undisturbed might watch aloneK
So cold so bright so stillL
-
The orb of dayC
In southern climes o'er ocean's waveless fieldC
Sinks sweetly smiling not the faintest breathM
Steals o'er the unruffled deep the clouds of eveN
Reflect unmoved the lingering beam of dayC
And Vesper's image on the western mainO
Is beautifully still To morrow comesG
Cloud upon cloud in dark and deepening massG
Roll o'er the blackened waters the deep roarP
Of distant thunder mutters awfullyQ
Tempest unfolds its pinion o'er the gloomR
That shrouds the boiling surge the pitiless fiendC
With all his winds and lightnings tracks his preyC
The torn deep yawns the vessel finds a graveS
Beneath its jagged gulfT
-
Ah whence yon glareU
That fires the arch of heaven that dark red smokeV
Blotting the silver moon The stars are quenchedC
In darkness and the pure and spangling snowF
Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers roundC
Hark to that roar whose swift and deafening pealsG
In countless echoes through the mountains ringW
Startling pale Midnight on her starry throneK
Now swells the intermingling din the jarX
Frequent and frightful of the bursting bombY
The falling beam the shriek the groan the shoutC
The ceaseless clangor and the rush of menZ
Inebriate with rage loud and more loudC
The discord grows till pale Death shuts the sceneJ
And o'er the conqueror and the conquered drawsG
His cold and bloody shroud Of all the menZ
Whom day's departing beam saw blooming thereU
In proud and vigorous health of all the heartsG
That beat with anxious life at sunset thereU
How few survive how few are beating nowA2
All is deep silence like the fearful calmY
That slumbers in the storm's portentous pauseG
Save when the frantic wail of widowed loveB2
Comes shuddering on the blast or the faint moanK
With which some soul bursts from the frame of clayC
Wrapt round its struggling powersG
-
The gray mornC2
Dawns on the mournful scene the sulphurous smokeV
Before the icy wind slow rolls awayC
And the bright beams of frosty morning danceG
Along the spangling snow There tracks of bloodC
Even to the forest's depth and scattered armsG
And lifeless warriors whose hard lineamentsG
Death's self could change not mark the dreadful pathD2
Of the outsallying victors far behindC
Black ashes note where their proud city stoodC
Within yon forest is a gloomy glenZ
Each tree which guards its darkness from the dayC
Waves o'er a warrior's tombR
-
I see thee shrinkE2
Surpassing Spirit wert thou human elseG
I see a shade of doubt and horror fleetC
Across thy stainless features yet fear notC
This is no unconnected miseryQ
Nor stands uncaused and irretrievableC
Man's evil nature that apologyQ
Which kings who rule and cowards who crouch set upF2
For their unnumbered crimes sheds not the bloodC
Which desolates the discord wasted landC
From kings and priests and statesmen war aroseG
Whose safety is man's deep unbettered woeF
Whose grandeur his debasement Let the axeG
Strike at the root the poison tree will fallC
And where its venomed exhalations spreadC
Ruin and death and woe where millions layC
Quenching the serpent's famine and their bonesG
Bleaching unburied in the putrid blastC
A garden shall arise in lovelinessG
Surpassing fabled EdenG2
-
Hath Nature's soulC
That formed this world so beautiful that spreadC
Earth's lap with plenty and life's smallest chordC
Strung to unchanging unison that gaveS
The happy birds their dwelling in the groveH2
That yielded to the wanderers of the deepH
The lovely silence of the unfathomed mainO
And filled the meanest worm that crawls in dustC
With spirit thought and love on Man aloneK
Partial in causeless malice wantonlyQ
Heaped ruin vice and slavery his soulC
Blasted with withering curses placed afarX
The meteor happiness that shuns his graspI2
But serving on the frightful gulf to glareU
Rent wide beneath his footstepsG
-
Nature noF
Kings priests and statesmen blast the human flowerI
Even in its tender bud their influence dartsG
Like subtle poison through the bloodless veinsG
Of desolate society The childC
Ere he can lisp his mother's sacred nameJ2
Swells with the unnatural pride of crime and liftsG
His baby sword even in a hero's moodC
This infant arm becomes the bloodiest scourgeK2
Of devastated earth whilst specious namesG
Learnt in soft childhood's unsuspecting hourI
Serve as the sophisms with which manhood dimsG
Bright reason's ray and sanctifies the swordC
Upraised to shed a brother's innocent bloodC
Let priest led slaves cease to proclaim that manL2
Inherits vice and misery when forceG
And falsehood hang even o'er the cradled babeM2
Stifling with rudest grasp all natural goodC
-
'Ah to the stranger soul when first it peepsG
From its new tenement and looks abroadC
For happiness and sympathy how sternN2
And desolate a tract is this wide worldC
How withered all the buds of natural goodC
No shade no shelter from the sweeping stormsG
Of pitiless power On its wretched frameJ2
Poisoned perchance by the disease and woeF
Heaped on the wretched parent whence it sprungO2
By morals law and custom the pure windsG
Of heaven that renovate the insect tribesG
May breathe not The untainting light of dayC
May visit not its longings It is boundC
Ere it has life yea all the chains are forgedC
Long ere its being all liberty and loveB2
And peace is torn from its defencelessnessG
Cursed from its birth even from its cradle doomedC
To abjectness and bondageP2
-
'Throughout this varied and eternal worldC
Soul is the only element the blockQ2
That for uncounted ages has remainedC
The moveless pillar of a mountain's weightC
Is active living spirit Every grainO
Is sentient both in unity and partC
And the minutest atom comprehendsG
A world of loves and hatreds these begetC
Evil and good hence truth and falsehood springW
Hence will and thought and action all the germsG
Of pain or pleasure sympathy or hateC
That variegate the eternal universeG
Soul is not more polluted than the beamsG
Of heaven's pure orb ere round their rapid linesG
The taint of earth born atmospheres ariseG
-
'Man is of soul and body formed for deedsG
Of high resolve on fancy's boldest wingW
To soar unwearied fearlessly to turnN2
The keenest pangs to peacefulness and tasteC
The joys which mingled sense and spirit yieldC
Or he is formed for abjectness and woeF
To grovel on the dunghill of his fearsG
To shrink at every sound to quench the flameJ2
Of natural love in sensualism to knowF
That hour as blest when on his worthless daysG
The frozen hand of death shall set its sealC
Yet fear the cure though hating the diseaseG
The one is man that shall hereafter beQ
The other man as vice has made him nowA2
-
'War is the statesman's game the priest's delightC
The lawyer's jest the hired assassin's tradeC
And to those royal murderers whose mean thronesG
Are bought by crimes of treachery and goreP
The bread they eat the staff on which they leanJ
Guards garbed in blood red livery surroundC
Their palaces participate the crimesG
That force defends and from a nation's rageR2
Secures the crown which all the curses reachS2
That famine frenzy woeF

Percy Bysshe Shelley



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