The Triumph Of Life Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACDCDEDEFEGHFHIHIJ IJKJKLKLMLMNMNHNHIHI EOEOPOPQPQRDSTSUVUWX WXMXMXMXXXXEXEYEYXYX HXHZHZA2ZA2UA2UOUODO DHDHB2HB2XC2XDXDDDDH DHXHXHXHPHPD2PD2YD2Y JB2TE2JE2DE2DHDHB2HB 2HB2HF2HPXPXG2XG2H2G 2H2XH2XXXXI2XI2DI2DQ DSwift as a spirit hastening to his task | A |
Of glory of good the Sun sprang forth | B |
Rejoicing in his splendour the mask | A |
Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth | C |
The smokeless altars of the mountain snows | D |
Flamed above crimson clouds at the birth | C |
Of light the Ocean's orison arose | D |
To which the birds tempered their matin lay | E |
All flowers in field or forest which unclose | D |
Their trembling eyelids to the kiss of day | E |
Swinging their censers in the element | F |
With orient incense lit by the new ray | E |
Burned slow inconsumably sent | G |
Their odorous sighs up to the smiling air | H |
And in succession due did Continent | F |
Isle Ocean all things that in them wear | H |
The form character of mortal mould | I |
Rise as the Sun their father rose to bear | H |
Their portion of the toil which he of old | I |
Took as his own then imposed on them | J |
But I whom thoughts which must remain untold | I |
Had kept as wakeful as the stars that gem | J |
The cone of night now they were laid asleep | K |
Stretched my faint limbs beneath the hoary stem | J |
Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep | K |
Of a green Apennine before me fled | L |
The night behind me rose the day the Deep | K |
Was at my feet Heaven above my head | L |
When a strange trance over my fancy grew | M |
Which was not slumber for the shade it spread | L |
Was so transparent that the scene came through | M |
As clear as when a veil of light is drawn | N |
O'er evening hills they glimmer and I knew | M |
That I had felt the freshness of that dawn | N |
Bathed in the same cold dew my brow hair | H |
And sate as thus upon that slope of lawn | N |
Under the self same bough heard as there | H |
The birds the fountains the Ocean hold | I |
Sweet talk in music through the enamoured air | H |
And then a Vision on my brain was rolled | I |
- | |
As in that trance of wondrous thought I lay | E |
This was the tenour of my waking dream | O |
Methought I sate beside a public way | E |
Thick strewn with summer dust a great stream | O |
Of people there was hurrying to fro | P |
Numerous as gnats upon the evening gleam | O |
All hastening onward yet none seemed to know | P |
Whither he went or whence he came or why | Q |
He made one of the multitude yet so | P |
Was borne amid the crowd as through the sky | Q |
One of the million leaves of summer's bier | R |
Old age youth manhood infancy | D |
Mixed in one mighty torrent did appear | S |
Some flying from the thing they feared some | T |
Seeking the object of another's fear | S |
And others as with steps towards the tomb | U |
Pored on the trodden worms that crawled beneath | V |
And others mournfully within the gloom | U |
Of their own shadow walked and called it death | W |
And some fled from it as it were a ghost | X |
Half fainting in the affliction of vain breath | W |
But more with motions which each other crost | X |
Pursued or shunned the shadows the clouds threw | M |
Or birds within the noonday ether lost | X |
Upon that path where flowers never grew | M |
And weary with vain toil faint for thirst | X |
Heard not the fountains whose melodious dew | M |
Out of their mossy cells forever burst | X |
Nor felt the breeze which from the forest told | X |
Of grassy paths wood lawns interspersed | X |
With overarching elms caverns cold | X |
And violet banks where sweet dreams brood but they | E |
Pursued their serious folly as of old | X |
And as I gazed methought that in the way | E |
The throng grew wilder as the woods of June | Y |
When the South wind shakes the extinguished day | E |
And a cold glare intenser than the noon | Y |
But icy cold obscured with blank light | X |
The Sun as he the stars Like the young moon | Y |
When on the sunlit limits of the night | X |
Her white shell trembles amid crimson air | H |
And whilst the sleeping tempest gathers might | X |
Doth as a herald of its coming bear | H |
The ghost of her dead Mother whose dim form | Z |
Bends in dark ether from her infant's chair | H |
So came a chariot on the silent storm | Z |
Of its own rushing splendour and a Shape | A2 |
So sate within as one whom years deform | Z |
Beneath a dusky hood double cape | A2 |
Crouching within the shadow of a tomb | U |
And o'er what seemed the head a cloud like crape | A2 |
Was bent a dun faint etherial gloom | U |
Tempering the light upon the chariot's beam | O |
A Janus visaged Shadow did assume | U |
The guidance of that wonder winged team | O |
The Shapes which drew it in thick lightnings | D |
Were lost I heard alone on the air's soft stream | O |
The music of their ever moving wings | D |
All the four faces of that charioteer | H |
Had their eyes banded little profit brings | D |
Speed in the van blindness in the rear | H |
Nor then avail the beams that quench the Sun | B2 |
Or that his banded eyes could pierce the sphere | H |
Of all that is has been or will be done | B2 |
So ill was the car guided but it past | X |
With solemn speed majestically on | C2 |
The crowd gave way I arose aghast | X |
Or seemed to rise so mighty was the trance | D |
And saw like clouds upon the thunder blast | X |
The million with fierce song and maniac dance | D |
Raging around such seemed the jubilee | D |
As when to greet some conqueror's advance | D |
Imperial Rome poured forth her living sea | D |
From senatehouse prison theatre | H |
When Freedom left those who upon the free | D |
Had bound a yoke which soon they stooped to bear | H |
Nor wanted here the true similitude | X |
Of a triumphal pageant for where'er | H |
The chariot rolled a captive multitude | X |
Was driven althose who had grown old in power | H |
Or misery all who have their age subdued | X |
By action or by suffering and whose hour | H |
Was drained to its last sand in weal or woe | P |
So that the trunk survived both fruit flower | H |
All those whose fame or infamy must grow | P |
Till the great winter lay the form name | D2 |
Of their own earth with them forever low | P |
All but the sacred few who could not tame | D2 |
Their spirits to the Conqueror but as soon | Y |
As they had touched the world with living flame | D2 |
Fled back like eagles to their native noon | Y |
Of those who put aside the diadem | J |
Of earthly thrones or gems till the last one | B2 |
Were there for they of Athens Jerusalem | T |
Were neither mid the mighty captives seen | E2 |
Nor mid the ribald crowd that followed them | J |
Or fled before Now swift fierce obscene | E2 |
The wild dance maddens in the van those | D |
Who lead it fleet as shadows on the green | E2 |
Outspeed the chariot without repose | D |
Mix with each other in tempestuous measure | H |
To savage music Wilder as it grows | D |
They tortured by the agonizing pleasure | H |
Convulsed on the rapid whirlwinds spun | B2 |
Of that fierce spirit whose unholy leisure | H |
Was soothed by mischief since the world begun | B2 |
Throw back their heads loose their streaming hair | H |
And in their dance round her who dims the Sun | B2 |
Maidens youths fling their wild arms in air | H |
As their feet twinkle they recede and now | F2 |
Bending within each other's atmosphere | H |
Kindle invisibly and as they glow | P |
Like moths by light attracted repelled | X |
Oft to new bright destruction come go | P |
Till like two clouds into one vale impelled | X |
That shake the mountains when their lightnings mingle | G2 |
And die in rain the fiery band which held | X |
Their natures snaps ere the shock cease to tingle | G2 |
One falls and then another in the path | H2 |
Senseless nor is the desolation single | G2 |
Yet ere I can say where the chariot hath | H2 |
Past over them nor other trace I find | X |
But as of foam after the Ocean's wrath | H2 |
Is spent upon the desert shore Behind | X |
Old men and women foully disarrayed | X |
Shake their grey hair in the insulting wind | X |
Limp in the dance strain with limbs decayed | X |
Seeking to reach the light which leaves them still | I2 |
Farther behind deeper in the shade | X |
But not the less with impotence of will | I2 |
They wheel though ghastly shadows interpose | D |
Round them round each other and fulfill | I2 |
Their work and to the dust whence they arose | D |
Sink corruption veils them as they lie | Q |
And frost in these p | D |
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1)
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