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 sigh | A |
Which vernal zephyrs breathe in evening's ear | B |
Were discord to the speaking quietude | C |
That wraps this moveless scene Heaven's ebon vault | C |
Studded with stars unutterably bright | C |
Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls | D |
Seems like a canopy which love had spread | C |
To curtain her sleeping world Yon gentle hills | E |
Robed in a garment of untrodden snow | F |
Yon darksome rocks whence icicles depend | C |
So stainless that their white and glittering spires | G |
Tinge not the moon's pure beam yon castled steep | H |
Whose banner hangeth o'er the time worn tower | I |
So idly that rapt fancy deemeth it | C |
A metaphor of peace all form a scene | J |
Where musing solitude might love to lift | C |
Her soul above this sphere of earthliness | G |
Where silence undisturbed might watch alone | K |
So cold so bright so still | L |
- | |
The orb of day | C |
In southern climes o'er ocean's waveless field | C |
Sinks sweetly smiling not the faintest breath | M |
Steals o'er the unruffled deep the clouds of eve | N |
Reflect unmoved the lingering beam of day | C |
And Vesper's image on the western main | O |
Is beautifully still To morrow comes | G |
Cloud upon cloud in dark and deepening mass | G |
Roll o'er the blackened waters the deep roar | P |
Of distant thunder mutters awfully | Q |
Tempest unfolds its pinion o'er the gloom | R |
That shrouds the boiling surge the pitiless fiend | C |
With all his winds and lightnings tracks his prey | C |
The torn deep yawns the vessel finds a grave | S |
Beneath its jagged gulf | T |
- | |
Ah whence yon glare | U |
That fires the arch of heaven that dark red smoke | V |
Blotting the silver moon The stars are quenched | C |
In darkness and the pure and spangling snow | F |
Gleams faintly through the gloom that gathers round | C |
Hark to that roar whose swift and deafening peals | G |
In countless echoes through the mountains ring | W |
Startling pale Midnight on her starry throne | K |
Now swells the intermingling din the jar | X |
Frequent and frightful of the bursting bomb | Y |
The falling beam the shriek the groan the shout | C |
The ceaseless clangor and the rush of men | Z |
Inebriate with rage loud and more loud | C |
The discord grows till pale Death shuts the scene | J |
And o'er the conqueror and the conquered draws | G |
His cold and bloody shroud Of all the men | Z |
Whom day's departing beam saw blooming there | U |
In proud and vigorous health of all the hearts | G |
That beat with anxious life at sunset there | U |
How few survive how few are beating now | A2 |
All is deep silence like the fearful calm | Y |
That slumbers in the storm's portentous pause | G |
Save when the frantic wail of widowed love | B2 |
Comes shuddering on the blast or the faint moan | K |
With which some soul bursts from the frame of clay | C |
Wrapt round its struggling powers | G |
- | |
The gray morn | C2 |
Dawns on the mournful scene the sulphurous smoke | V |
Before the icy wind slow rolls away | C |
And the bright beams of frosty morning dance | G |
Along the spangling snow There tracks of blood | C |
Even to the forest's depth and scattered arms | G |
And lifeless warriors whose hard lineaments | G |
Death's self could change not mark the dreadful path | D2 |
Of the outsallying victors far behind | C |
Black ashes note where their proud city stood | C |
Within yon forest is a gloomy glen | Z |
Each tree which guards its darkness from the day | C |
Waves o'er a warrior's tomb | R |
- | |
I see thee shrink | E2 |
Surpassing Spirit wert thou human else | G |
I see a shade of doubt and horror fleet | C |
Across thy stainless features yet fear not | C |
This is no unconnected misery | Q |
Nor stands uncaused and irretrievable | C |
Man's evil nature that apology | Q |
Which kings who rule and cowards who crouch set up | F2 |
For their unnumbered crimes sheds not the blood | C |
Which desolates the discord wasted land | C |
From kings and priests and statesmen war arose | G |
Whose safety is man's deep unbettered woe | F |
Whose grandeur his debasement Let the axe | G |
Strike at the root the poison tree will fall | C |
And where its venomed exhalations spread | C |
Ruin and death and woe where millions lay | C |
Quenching the serpent's famine and their bones | G |
Bleaching unburied in the putrid blast | C |
A garden shall arise in loveliness | G |
Surpassing fabled Eden | G2 |
- | |
Hath Nature's soul | C |
That formed this world so beautiful that spread | C |
Earth's lap with plenty and life's smallest chord | C |
Strung to unchanging unison that gave | S |
The happy birds their dwelling in the grove | H2 |
That yielded to the wanderers of the deep | H |
The lovely silence of the unfathomed main | O |
And filled the meanest worm that crawls in dust | C |
With spirit thought and love on Man alone | K |
Partial in causeless malice wantonly | Q |
Heaped ruin vice and slavery his soul | C |
Blasted with withering curses placed afar | X |
The meteor happiness that shuns his grasp | I2 |
But serving on the frightful gulf to glare | U |
Rent wide beneath his footsteps | G |
- | |
Nature no | F |
Kings priests and statesmen blast the human flower | I |
Even in its tender bud their influence darts | G |
Like subtle poison through the bloodless veins | G |
Of desolate society The child | C |
Ere he can lisp his mother's sacred name | J2 |
Swells with the unnatural pride of crime and lifts | G |
His baby sword even in a hero's mood | C |
This infant arm becomes the bloodiest scourge | K2 |
Of devastated earth whilst specious names | G |
Learnt in soft childhood's unsuspecting hour | I |
Serve as the sophisms with which manhood dims | G |
Bright reason's ray and sanctifies the sword | C |
Upraised to shed a brother's innocent blood | C |
Let priest led slaves cease to proclaim that man | L2 |
Inherits vice and misery when force | G |
And falsehood hang even o'er the cradled babe | M2 |
Stifling with rudest grasp all natural good | C |
- | |
'Ah to the stranger soul when first it peeps | G |
From its new tenement and looks abroad | C |
For happiness and sympathy how stern | N2 |
And desolate a tract is this wide world | C |
How withered all the buds of natural good | C |
No shade no shelter from the sweeping storms | G |
Of pitiless power On its wretched frame | J2 |
Poisoned perchance by the disease and woe | F |
Heaped on the wretched parent whence it sprung | O2 |
By morals law and custom the pure winds | G |
Of heaven that renovate the insect tribes | G |
May breathe not The untainting light of day | C |
May visit not its longings It is bound | C |
Ere it has life yea all the chains are forged | C |
Long ere its being all liberty and love | B2 |
And peace is torn from its defencelessness | G |
Cursed from its birth even from its cradle doomed | C |
To abjectness and bondage | P2 |
- | |
'Throughout this varied and eternal world | C |
Soul is the only element the block | Q2 |
That for uncounted ages has remained | C |
The moveless pillar of a mountain's weight | C |
Is active living spirit Every grain | O |
Is sentient both in unity and part | C |
And the minutest atom comprehends | G |
A world of loves and hatreds these beget | C |
Evil and good hence truth and falsehood spring | W |
Hence will and thought and action all the germs | G |
Of pain or pleasure sympathy or hate | C |
That variegate the eternal universe | G |
Soul is not more polluted than the beams | G |
Of heaven's pure orb ere round their rapid lines | G |
The taint of earth born atmospheres arise | G |
- | |
'Man is of soul and body formed for deeds | G |
Of high resolve on fancy's boldest wing | W |
To soar unwearied fearlessly to turn | N2 |
The keenest pangs to peacefulness and taste | C |
The joys which mingled sense and spirit yield | C |
Or he is formed for abjectness and woe | F |
To grovel on the dunghill of his fears | G |
To shrink at every sound to quench the flame | J2 |
Of natural love in sensualism to know | F |
That hour as blest when on his worthless days | G |
The frozen hand of death shall set its seal | C |
Yet fear the cure though hating the disease | G |
The one is man that shall hereafter be | Q |
The other man as vice has made him now | A2 |
- | |
'War is the statesman's game the priest's delight | C |
The lawyer's jest the hired assassin's trade | C |
And to those royal murderers whose mean thrones | G |
Are bought by crimes of treachery and gore | P |
The bread they eat the staff on which they lean | J |
Guards garbed in blood red livery surround | C |
Their palaces participate the crimes | G |
That force defends and from a nation's rage | R2 |
Secures the crown which all the curses reach | S2 |
That famine frenzy woe | F |
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Queen Mab: Part Iv. poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Best Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley