Queen Mab: Part V. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMMNMOPQR SMTSMUVWKMXYMMUZY CA2HYQB2C2ZHD2E2MF2G 2H2 MI2D2J2K2MI2XML2M2 F2UN2O2RMP2YQ2R2XEVC 2S2 T2MN2YMG2EQMOMU2D2V2 X W2MX2Y2Z2UA3B3A2C3N2 MMMOMD3RQ2Q2T2KYE3MY VMJ2L2MMI2X MS2YF3BMYMG3A3YOKH3I 3YI3XQ2J3 F3AM2K3L3XQG2YM3N3XO 3F2XMMP3YY XAT2Q3YYXXYXX Q2QMR3U2B2T2QXXMG2Y2 S3MK'Thus do the generations of the earth | A |
Go to the grave and issue from the womb | B |
Surviving still the imperishable change | C |
That renovates the world even as the leaves | D |
Which the keen frost wind of the waning year | E |
Has scattered on the forest soil and heaped | F |
For many seasons there though long they choke | G |
Loading with loathsome rottenness the land | H |
All germs of promise yet when the tall trees | I |
From which they fell shorn of their lovely shapes | J |
Lie level with the earth to moulder there | K |
They fertilize the land they long deformed | L |
Till from the breathing lawn a forest springs | M |
Of youth integrity and loveliness | M |
Like that which gave it life to spring and die | N |
Thus suicidal selfishness that blights | M |
The fairest feelings of the opening heart | O |
Is destined to decay whilst from the soil | P |
Shall spring all virtue all delight all love | Q |
And judgment cease to wage unnatural war | R |
With passion's unsubduable array | S |
Twin sister of Religion Selfishness | M |
Rival in crime and falsehood aping all | T |
The wanton horrors of her bloody play | S |
Yet frozen unimpassioned spiritless | M |
Shunning the light and owning not its name | U |
Compelled by its deformity to screen | V |
With flimsy veil of justice and of right | W |
Its unattractive lineaments that scare | K |
All save the brood of ignorance at once | M |
The cause and the effect of tyranny | X |
Unblushing hardened sensual and vile | Y |
Dead to all love but of its abjectness | M |
With heart impassive by more noble powers | M |
Than unshared pleasure sordid gain or fame | U |
Despising its own miserable being | Z |
Which still it longs yet fears to disenthrall | Y |
- | |
'Hence commerce springs the venal interchange | C |
Of all that human art or Nature yield | A2 |
Which wealth should purchase not but want demand | H |
And natural kindness hasten to supply | Y |
From the full fountain of its boundless love | Q |
Forever stifled drained and tainted now | B2 |
Commerce beneath whose poison breathing shade | C2 |
No solitary virtue dares to spring | Z |
But poverty and wealth with equal hand | H |
Scatter their withering curses and unfold | D2 |
The doors of premature and violent death | E2 |
To pining famine and full fed disease | M |
To all that shares the lot of human life | F2 |
Which poisoned body and soul scarce drags the chain | G2 |
That lengthens as it goes and clanks behind | H2 |
- | |
'Commerce has set the mark of selfishness | M |
The signet of its all enslaving power | I2 |
Upon a shining ore and called it gold | D2 |
Before whose image bow the vulgar great | J2 |
The vainly rich the miserable proud | K2 |
The mob of peasants nobles priests and kings | M |
And with blind feelings reverence the power | I2 |
That grinds them to the dust of misery | X |
But in the temple of their hireling hearts | M |
Gold is a living god and rules in scorn | L2 |
All earthly things but virtue | M2 |
- | |
'Since tyrants by the sale of human life | F2 |
Heap luxuries to their sensualism and fame | U |
To their wide wasting and insatiate pride | N2 |
Success has sanctioned to a credulous world | O2 |
The ruin the disgrace the woe of war | R |
His hosts of blind and unresisting dupes | M |
The despot numbers from his cabinet | P2 |
These puppets of his schemes he moves at will | Y |
Even as the slaves by force or famine driven | Q2 |
Beneath a vulgar master to perform | R2 |
A task of cold and brutal drudgery | X |
Hardened to hope insensible to fear | E |
Scarce living pulleys of a dead machine | V |
Mere wheels of work and articles of trade | C2 |
That grace the proud and noisy pomp of wealth | S2 |
- | |
'The harmony and happiness of man | T2 |
Yields to the wealth of nations that which lifts | M |
His nature to the heaven of its pride | N2 |
Is bartered for the poison of his soul | Y |
The weight that drags to earth his towering hopes | M |
Blighting all prospect but of selfish gain | G2 |
Withering all passion but of slavish fear | E |
Extinguishing all free and generous love | Q |
Of enterprise and daring even the pulse | M |
That fancy kindles in the beating heart | O |
To mingle with sensation it destroys | M |
Leaves nothing but the sordid lust of self | U2 |
The grovelling hope of interest and gold | D2 |
Unqualified unmingled unredeemed | V2 |
Even by hypocrisy | X |
- | |
And statesmen boast | W2 |
Of wealth The wordy eloquence that lives | M |
After the ruin of their hearts can gild | X2 |
The bitter poison of a nation's woe | Y2 |
Can turn the worship of the servile mob | Z2 |
To their corrupt and glaring idol fame | U |
From virtue trampled by its iron tread | A3 |
Although its dazzling pedestal be raised | B3 |
Amid the horrors of a limb strewn field | A2 |
With desolated dwellings smoking round | C3 |
The man of ease who by his warm fireside | N2 |
To deeds of charitable intercourse | M |
And bare fulfilment of the common laws | M |
Of decency and prejudice confines | M |
The struggling nature of his human heart | O |
Is duped by their cold sophistry he sheds | M |
A passing tear perchance upon the wreck | D3 |
Of earthly peace when near his dwelling's door | R |
The frightful waves are driven when his son | Q2 |
Is murdered by the tyrant or religion | Q2 |
Drives his wife raving mad But the poor man | T2 |
Whose life is misery and fear and care | K |
Whom the morn wakens but to fruitless toil | Y |
Who ever hears his famished offspring's scream | E3 |
Whom their pale mother's uncomplaining gaze | M |
Forever meets and the proud rich man's eye | Y |
Flashing command and the heart breaking scene | V |
Of thousands like himself he little heeds | M |
The rhetoric of tyranny his hate | J2 |
Is quenchless as his wrongs he laughs to scorn | L2 |
The vain and bitter mockery of words | M |
Feeling the horror of the tyrant's deeds | M |
And unrestrained but by the arm of power | I2 |
That knows and dreads his enmity | X |
- | |
'The iron rod of penury still compels | M |
Her wretched slave to bow the knee to wealth | S2 |
And poison with unprofitable toil | Y |
A life too void of solace to confirm | F3 |
The very chains that bind him to his doom | B |
Nature impartial in munificence | M |
Has gifted man with all subduing will | Y |
Matter with all its transitory shapes | M |
Lies subjected and plastic at his feet | G3 |
That weak from bondage tremble as they tread | A3 |
How many a rustic Milton has passed by | Y |
Stifling the speechless longings of his heart | O |
In unremitting drudgery and care | K |
How many a vulgar Cato has compelled | H3 |
His energies no longer tameless then | I3 |
To mould a pin or fabricate a nail | Y |
How many a Newton to whose passive ken | I3 |
Those mighty spheres that gem infinity | X |
Were only specks of tinsel fixed in heaven | Q2 |
To light the midnights of his native town | J3 |
- | |
'Yet every heart contains perfection's germ | F3 |
The wisest of the sages of the earth | A |
That ever from the stores of reason drew | M2 |
Science and truth and virtue's dreadless tone | K3 |
Were but a weak and inexperienced boy | L3 |
Proud sensual unimpassioned unimbued | X |
With pure desire and universal love | Q |
Compared to that high being of cloudless brain | G2 |
Untainted passion elevated will | Y |
Which death who even would linger long in awe | M3 |
Within his noble presence and beneath | N3 |
His changeless eye beam might alone subdue | X |
Him every slave now dragging through the filth | O3 |
Of some corrupted city his sad life | F2 |
Pining with famine swoln with luxury | X |
Blunting the keenness of his spiritual sense | M |
With narrow schemings and unworthy cares | M |
Or madly rushing through all violent crime | P3 |
To move the deep stagnation of his soul | Y |
Might imitate and equal | Y |
- | |
But mean lust | X |
Has bound its chains so tight about the earth | A |
That all within it but the virtuous man | T2 |
Is venal gold or fame will surely reach | Q3 |
The price prefixed by Selfishness to all | Y |
But him of resolute and unchanging will | Y |
Whom nor the plaudits of a servile crowd | X |
Nor the vile joys of tainting luxury | X |
Can bribe to yield his elevated soul | Y |
To Tyranny or Falsehood though they wield | X |
With blood red hand the sceptre of the world | X |
- | |
'All things are sold the very light of heaven | Q2 |
Is venal earth's unsparing gifts of love | Q |
The smallest and most despicable things | M |
That lurk in the abysses of the deep | R3 |
All objects of our life even life itself | U2 |
And the poor pittance which the laws allow | B2 |
Of liberty the fellowship of man | T2 |
Those duties which his heart of human love | Q |
Should urge him to perform instinctively | X |
Are bought and sold as in a public mart | X |
Of undisguising Selfishness that sets | M |
On each its price the stamp mark of her reign | G2 |
Even love is sold the solace of all woe | Y2 |
Is turned to deadliest agony old age | S3 |
Shivers in selfish beauty's loathing arms | M |
And youth's corrupted impulses prepare | K |
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1)
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