The Revolt Of Islam. - Canto 8 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBCCDCDD EFGFFHIHH JKJKKLMLL NOPQOEQGG RSTSSDSDD EDGDDUDVW DXDXXYXYY ZDA2DDB2DB2C2 D2DD2DDE2DE2S DIDIIDIDD DF2DF2F2EF2GG2 H2DI2DDSDE2S E2QSQQJ2QJ2J2 K2DTDDDDBB PDNDDSDSS L2DL2DDDDDD M2N2M2N2N2CN2CC G2CGCCO2CO2O2 P2NP2Q2PR2Q2R2R2 B2N2B2N2N2DN2DD BDBDDHDHH DDDDDS2DS2S2 T2U2DU2U2DU2SD V2W2V2W2W2F2W2F2F2 X2DY2DDIDII Z2D2Z2D2D2A3D2B3B3 CC3CC3C3DC3DD D3T2D3T2DDT2DD DI2DI2H2DH2DD DDDDDE3DE3E3A | |
'I sate beside the Steersman then and gazing | B |
Upon the west cried Spread the sails Behold | C |
The sinking moon is like a watch tower blazing | B |
Over the mountains yet the City of Gold | C |
Yon Cape alone does from the sight withhold | C |
The stream is fleet the north breathes steadily | D |
Beneath the stars they tremble with the cold | C |
Ye cannot rest upon the dreary sea | D |
Haste haste to the warm home of happier destiny | D |
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'The Mariners obeyed the Captain stood | E |
Aloof and whispering to the Pilot said | F |
Alas alas I fear we are pursued | G |
By wicked ghosts a Phantom of the Dead | F |
The night before we sailed came to my bed | F |
In dream like that The Pilot then replied | H |
It cannot be she is a human Maid | I |
Her low voice makes you weep she is some bride | H |
Or daughter of high birth she can be nought beside | H |
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'We passed the islets borne by wind and stream | J |
And as we sailed the Mariners came near | K |
And thronged around to listen in the gleam | J |
Of the pale moon I stood as one whom fear | K |
May not attaint and my calm voice did rear | K |
Ye are all human yon broad moon gives light | L |
To millions who the selfsame likeness wear | M |
Even while I speak beneath this very night | L |
Their thoughts flow on like ours in sadness or delight | L |
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' What dream ye Your own hands have built an home | N |
Even for yourselves on a beloved shore | O |
For some fond eyes are pining till they come | P |
How they will greet him when his toils are o'er | Q |
And laughing babes rush from the well known door | O |
Is this your care ye toil for your own good | E |
Ye feel and think has some immortal power | Q |
Such purposes or in a human mood | G |
Dream ye some Power thus builds for man in solitude | G |
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' What is that Power Ye mock yourselves and give | R |
A human heart to what ye cannot know | S |
As if the cause of life could think and live | T |
'Twere as if man's own works should feel and show | S |
The hopes and fears and thoughts from which they flow | S |
And he be like to them Lo Plague is free | D |
To waste Blight Poison Earthquake Hail and Snow | S |
Disease and Want and worse Necessity | D |
Of hate and ill and Pride and Fear and Tyranny | D |
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' What is that Power Some moon struck sophist stood | E |
Watching the shade from his own soul upthrown | D |
Fill Heaven and darken Earth and in such mood | G |
The Form he saw and worshipped was his own | D |
His likeness in the world's vast mirror shown | D |
And 'twere an innocent dream but that a faith | U |
Nursed by fear's dew of poison grows thereon | D |
And that men say that Power has chosen Death | V |
On all who scorn its laws to wreak immortal wrath | W |
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' Men say that they themselves have heard and seen | D |
Or known from others who have known such things | X |
A Shade a Form which Earth and Heaven between | D |
Wields an invisible rod that Priests and Kings | X |
Custom domestic sway ay all that brings | X |
Man's freeborn soul beneath the oppressor's heel | Y |
Are his strong ministers and that the stings | X |
Of death will make the wise his vengeance feel | Y |
Though truth and virtue arm their hearts with tenfold steel | Y |
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' And it is said this Power will punish wrong | Z |
Yes add despair to crime and pain to pain | D |
And deepest hell and deathless snakes among | A2 |
Will bind the wretch on whom is fixed a stain | D |
Which like a plague a burden and a bane | D |
Clung to him while he lived for love and hate | B2 |
Virtue and vice they say are difference vain | D |
The will of strength is right this human state | B2 |
Tyrants that they may rule with lies thus desolate | C2 |
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' Alas what strength Opinion is more frail | D2 |
Than yon dim cloud now fading on the moon | D |
Even while we gaze though it awhile avail | D2 |
To hide the orb of truth and every throne | D |
Of Earth or Heaven though shadow rests thereon | D |
One shape of many names for this ye plough | E2 |
The barren waves of ocean hence each one | D |
Is slave or tyrant all betray and bow | E2 |
Command or kill or fear or wreak or suffer woe | S |
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' Its names are each a sign which maketh holy | D |
All power ay the ghost the dream the shade | I |
Of power lust falsehood hate and pride and folly | D |
The pattern whence all fraud and wrong is made | I |
A law to which mankind has been betrayed | I |
And human love is as the name well known | D |
Of a dear mother whom the murderer laid | I |
In bloody grave and into darkness thrown | D |
Gathered her wildered babes around him as his own | D |
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' O Love who to the hearts of wandering men | D |
Art as the calm to Ocean's weary waves | F2 |
Justice or Truth or Joy those only can | D |
From slavery and religion's labyrinth caves | F2 |
Guide us as one clear star the seaman saves | F2 |
To give to all an equal share of good | E |
To track the steps of Freedom though through graves | F2 |
She pass to suffer all in patient mood | G |
To weep for crime though stained with thy friend's dearest blood | G2 |
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' To feel the peace of self contentment's lot | H2 |
To own all sympathies and outrage none | D |
And in the inmost bowers of sense and thought | I2 |
Until life's sunny day is quite gone down | D |
To sit and smile with Joy or not alone | D |
To kiss salt tears from the worn cheek of Woe | S |
To live as if to love and live were one | D |
This is not faith or law nor those who bow | E2 |
To thrones on Heaven or Earth such destiny may know | S |
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' But children near their parents tremble now | E2 |
Because they must obey one rules another | Q |
And as one Power rules both high and low | S |
So man is made the captive of his brother | Q |
And Hate is throned on high with Fear her mother | Q |
Above the Highest and those fountain cells | J2 |
Whence love yet flowed when faith had choked all other | Q |
Are darkened Woman as the bond slave dwells | J2 |
Of man a slave and life is poisoned in its wells | J2 |
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' Man seeks for gold in mines that he may weave | K2 |
A lasting chain for his own slavery | D |
In fear and restless care that he may live | T |
He toils for others who must ever be | D |
The joyless thralls of like captivity | D |
He murders for his chiefs delight in ruin | D |
He builds the altar that its idol's fee | D |
May be his very blood he is pursuing | B |
O blind and willing wretch his own obscure undoing | B |
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' Woman she is his slave she has become | P |
A thing I weep to speak the child of scorn | D |
The outcast of a desolated home | N |
Falsehood and fear and toil like waves have worn | D |
Channels upon her cheek which smiles adorn | D |
As calm decks the false Ocean well ye know | S |
What Woman is for none of Woman born | D |
Can choose but drain the bitter dregs of woe | S |
Which ever from the oppressed to the oppressors flow | S |
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' This need not be ye might arise and will | L2 |
That gold should lose its power and thrones their glory | D |
That love which none may bind be free to fill | L2 |
The world like light and evil faith grown hoary | D |
With crime be quenched and die Yon promontory | D |
Even now eclipses the descending moon | D |
Dungeons and palaces are transitory | D |
High temples fade like vapour Man alone | D |
Remains whose will has power when all beside is gone | D |
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' Let all be free and equal From your hearts | M2 |
I feel an echo through my inmost frame | N2 |
Like sweetest sound seeking its mate it darts | M2 |
Whence come ye friends Alas I cannot name | N2 |
All that I read of sorrow toil and shame | N2 |
On your worn faces as in legends old | C |
Which make immortal the disastrous fame | N2 |
Of conquerors and impostors false and bold | C |
The discord of your hearts I in your looks behold | C |
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' Whence come ye friends from pouring human blood | G2 |
Forth on the earth Or bring ye steel and gold | C |
That Kings may dupe and slay the multitude | G |
Or from the famished poor pale weak and cold | C |
Bear ye the earnings of their toil Unfold | C |
Speak Are your hands in slaughter's sanguine hue | O2 |
Stained freshly have your hearts in guile grown old | C |
Know yourselves thus ye shall be pure as dew | O2 |
And I will be a friend and sister unto you | O2 |
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' Disguise it not we have one human heart | P2 |
All mortal thoughts confess a common home | N |
Blush not for what may to thyself impart | P2 |
Stains of inevitable crime the doom | Q2 |
Is this which has or may or must become | P |
Thine and all humankind's Ye are the spoil | R2 |
Which Time thus marks for the devouring tomb | Q2 |
Thou and thy thoughts and they and all the toil | R2 |
Wherewith ye twine the rings of life's perpetual coil | R2 |
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' Disguise it not ye blush for what ye hate | B2 |
And Enmity is sister unto Shame | N2 |
Look on your mind it is the book of fate | B2 |
Ah it is dark with many a blazoned name | N2 |
Of misery all are mirrors of the same | N2 |
But the dark fiend who with his iron pen | D |
Dipped in scorn's fiery poison makes his fame | N2 |
Enduring there would o'er the heads of men | D |
Pass harmless if they scorned to make their hearts his den | D |
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' Yes it is Hate that shapeless fiendly thing | B |
Of many names all evil some divine | D |
Whom self contempt arms with a mortal sting | B |
Which when the heart its snaky folds entwine | D |
Is wasted quite and when it doth repine | D |
To gorge such bitter prey on all beside | H |
It turns with ninefold rage as with its twine | D |
When Amphisbaena some fair bird has tied | H |
Soon o'er the putrid mass he threats on every side | H |
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' Reproach not thine own soul but know thyself | D |
Nor hate another's crime nor loathe thine own | D |
It is the dark idolatry of self | D |
Which when our thoughts and actions once are gone | D |
Demands that man should weep and bleed and groan | D |
Oh vacant expiation Be at rest | S2 |
The past is Death's the future is thine own | D |
And love and joy can make the foulest breast | S2 |
A paradise of flowers where peace might build her nest | S2 |
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' Speak thou whence come ye A Youth made reply | T2 |
Wearily wearily o'er the boundless deep | U2 |
We sail thou readest well the misery | D |
Told in these faded eyes but much doth sleep | U2 |
Within which there the poor heart loves to keep | U2 |
Or dare not write on the dishonoured brow | D |
Even from our childhood have we learned to steep | U2 |
The bread of slavery in the tears of woe | S |
And never dreamed of hope or refuge until now | D |
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' Yes I must speak my secret should have perished | V2 |
Even with the heart it wasted as a brand | W2 |
Fades in the dying flame whose life it cherished | V2 |
But that no human bosom can withstand | W2 |
Thee wondrous Lady and the mild command | W2 |
Of thy keen eyes yes we are wretched slaves | F2 |
Who from their wonted loves and native land | W2 |
Are reft and bear o'er the dividing waves | F2 |
The unregarded prey of calm and happy graves | F2 |
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' We drag afar from pastoral vales the fairest | X2 |
Among the daughters of those mountains lone | D |
We drag them there where all things best and rarest | Y2 |
Are stained and trampled years have come and gone | D |
Since like the ship which bears me I have known | D |
No thought but now the eyes of one dear Maid | I |
On mine with light of mutual love have shone | D |
She is my life I am but as the shade | I |
Of her a smoke sent up from ashes soon to fade | I |
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' For she must perish in the Tyrant's hall | Z2 |
Alas alas He ceased and by the sail | D2 |
Sate cowering but his sobs were heard by all | Z2 |
And still before the ocean and the gale | D2 |
The ship fled fast till the stars 'gan to fail | D2 |
And round me gathered with mute countenance | A3 |
The Seamen gazed the Pilot worn and pale | D2 |
With toil the Captain with gray locks whose glance | B3 |
Met mine in restless awe they stood as in a trance | B3 |
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' Recede not pause not now Thou art grown old | C |
But Hope will make thee young for Hope and Youth | C3 |
Are children of one mother even Love behold | C |
The eternal stars gaze on us is the truth | C3 |
Within your soul care for your own or ruth | C3 |
For others' sufferings do ye thirst to bear | D |
A heart which not the serpent Custom's tooth | C3 |
May violate Be free and even here | D |
Swear to be firm till death They cried We swear We swear | D |
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'The very darkness shook as with a blast | D3 |
Of subterranean thunder at the cry | T2 |
The hollow shore its thousand echoes cast | D3 |
Into the night as if the sea and sky | T2 |
And earth rejoiced with new born liberty | D |
For in that name they swore Bolts were undrawn | D |
And on the deck with unaccustomed eye | T2 |
The captives gazing stood and every one | D |
Shrank as the inconstant torch upon her countenance shone | D |
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'They were earth's purest children young and fair | D |
With eyes the shrines of unawakened thought | I2 |
And brows as bright as Spring or Morning ere | D |
Dark time had there its evil legend wrought | I2 |
In characters of cloud which wither not | H2 |
The change was like a dream to them but soon | D |
They knew the glory of their altered lot | H2 |
In the bright wisdom of youth's breathless noon | D |
Sweet talk and smiles and sighs all bosoms did attune | D |
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'But one was mute her cheeks and lips most fair | D |
Changing their hue like lilies newly blown | D |
Beneath a bright acacia's shadowy hair | D |
Waved by the wind amid the sunny noon | D |
Showed that her soul was quivering and full soon | D |
That Youth arose and breathlessly did look | E3 |
On her and me as for some speechless boon | D |
I smiled and both their hands in mine I took | E3 |
And felt a soft delight from what their spirits shook | E3 |
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1)
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