The Witch Of Atlas Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABABCC DCDCDCEE FGFGFGDD CCHCHCII JKJLJKMM NONPNPPP QRRRRRDD RMRMRMCC LPLPLPCC SDSDSDAA NPNPNPPP PPPPPPDD TSTSTTUV RLRLRLCC PDPDPDRR SPSPSPDD PWPWPWPP DXDXDXYV TPTPTPCC CFCFCFPP ZFZFA2FCC DDDPBefore those cruel twins whom at one birth | A |
Incestuous Change bore to her father Time | B |
Error and Truth had hunted from the earth | A |
All those bright natures which adorned its prime | B |
And left us nothing to believe in worth | A |
The pains of putting into learn d rhyme | B |
A Lady Witch there lived on Atlas mountain | C |
Within a cavern by a secret fountain | C |
- | |
Her mother was one of the Atlantides | D |
The all beholding Sun had ne'er beholden | C |
In his wide voyage o'er continents and seas | D |
So fair a creature as she lay enfolden | C |
In the warm shadow of her loveliness | D |
He kissed her with his beams and made all golden | C |
The chamber of gray rock in which she lay | E |
She in that dream of joy dissolved away | E |
- | |
'Tis said she first was changed into a vapor | F |
And then into a cloud such clouds as flit | G |
Like splendor winged moths about a taper | F |
Round the red west when the Sun dies in it | G |
And then into a meteor such as caper | F |
On hill tops when the Moon is in a fit | G |
Then into one of those mysterious stars | D |
Which hide themselves between the Earth and Mars | D |
- | |
Ten times the Mother of the Months had ben | C |
Her bow beside the folding star and bidden | C |
With that bright sign the billows to indent | H |
The sea deserted sand like children chidden | C |
At her command they ever came and went | H |
Since in that cave a dewy splendor hidden | C |
Took shape and motion With the living form | I |
Of this embodied Power the cave grew warm | I |
- | |
A lovely Lady garmented in light | J |
From her own beauty deep her eyes as are | K |
Two openings of unfathomable night | J |
Seen through a temple's cloven roof her hair | L |
Dark the dim brain whirls dizzy with delight | J |
Picturing her form Her soft smiles shone afar | K |
And her low voice was heard like love and drew | M |
All living things towards this wonder new | M |
- | |
And first the spotted cameleopard came | N |
And then the wise and fearless elephant | O |
Then the sly serpent in the golden flame | N |
Of his own volumes intervolved All gaunt | P |
And sanguine beasts her gentle looks made tame | N |
They drank before her at her sacred fount | P |
And every beast of beating heart grew bold | P |
Such gentleness and power even to behold | P |
- | |
The brinded lioness led forth her young | Q |
That she might teach them how they should forego | R |
Their inborn thirst of death the pard unstrung | R |
His sinews at her feet and sought to know | R |
With looks whose motions spoke without a tongue | R |
How he might be as gentle as the doe | R |
The magic circle of her voice and eyes | D |
All savage natures did imparadise | D |
- | |
And old Silenus shaking a green stick | R |
Of lilies and the Wood gods in a crew | M |
Came blithe as in the olive copses thick | R |
Cicade are drunk with the noonday dew | M |
And Dryope and Faunus followed quick | R |
Teazing the God to sing them something new | M |
Till in this cave they found the Lady lone | C |
Sitting upon a seat of emerald stone | C |
- | |
And universal Pan 'tis said was there | L |
And though none saw him through the adamant | P |
Of the deep mountains through the trackless air | L |
And through those living spirits like a want | P |
He passed out of his everlasting lair | L |
Where the quick heart of the great world doth pant | P |
And felt that wondrous Lady all alone | C |
And she felt him upon her emerald throne | C |
- | |
And every Nymph of stream and spreading tree | S |
And every Shepherdess of Ocean's flocks | D |
Who drives her white waves over the green sea | S |
And Ocean with the brine on his grey locks | D |
And quaint Priapus with his company | S |
All came much wondering how the enwombed rocks | D |
Could have brought forth so beautiful a birth | A |
Her love subdued their wonder and their mirth | A |
- | |
The herdsmen and the mountain maidens came | N |
And the rude kings of pastoral Garamant | P |
Their spirits shook within them as a flame | N |
Stirred by the air under a cavern gaunt | P |
Pygmies and Polyphemes by many a name | N |
Centaurs and Satyrs and such shapes as haunt | P |
Wet clefts and lumps neither alive nor dead | P |
Dog headed bosom eyed and bird footed | P |
- | |
For she was beautiful Her beauty made | P |
The bright world dim and everything beside | P |
Seemed like the fleeting image of a shade | P |
No thought of living spirit could abide | P |
Which to her looks had ever been betrayed | P |
On any object in the world so wide | P |
On any hope within the circling skies | D |
But on her form and in her inmost eyes | D |
- | |
Which when the Lady knew she took her spindle | T |
And twined three threads of fleecy mist and three | S |
Long lines of light such as the dawn may kindle | T |
The clouds and waves and mountains with and she | S |
As many starbeams ere their lamps could dwindle | T |
In the belated moon wound skilfully | T |
And with these threads a subtle veil she wove | U |
A shadow for the splendour of her love | V |
- | |
The deep recesses of her odorous dwelling | R |
Were stored with magic treasures sounds of air | L |
Which had the power all spirits of compelling | R |
Folded in cells of crystal silence there | L |
Such as we hear in youth and think the feeling | R |
will never die yet ere we are aware | L |
The feeling and the sound are fled and gone | C |
And the regret they leave remains alone | C |
- | |
And there lay Visions swift and sweet and quaint | P |
Each in its thin sheath like a chrysalis | D |
Some eager to burst forth some weak and faint | P |
With the soft burden of intensest bliss | D |
It is their work to bear to many a saint | P |
Whose heart adores the shrine which holiest is | D |
Even Love's and others white green grey and black | R |
And of all shapes and each was at her beck | R |
- | |
And odours in a kind of aviary | S |
Of ever blooming Eden trees she kept | P |
Clipped in a floating net a love sick Fairy | S |
Had woven from dew beams while the moon yet slept | P |
As bats at the wired window of a dairy | S |
They beat their vans and each was an adept | P |
When loosed and missioned making wings of winds | D |
To stir sweet thoughts or sad in destined minds | D |
- | |
And liquors clear and sweet whose healthful might | P |
Could medicine the sick soul to happy sleep | W |
And change eternal death into a night | P |
Of glorious dreams or if eyes needs must weep | W |
Could make their tears all wonder and delight | P |
She in her crystal phials did closely keep | W |
If men could drink of those clear phials 'tis said | P |
The living were not envied of the dead | P |
- | |
Her cave was stored with scrolls of strange device | D |
The works of some Saturnian Archimage | X |
Which taught the expiations at whose price | D |
Men from the Gods might win that happy age | X |
Too lightly lost redeeming native vice | D |
And which might quench the earth consuming rage | X |
Of gold and blood till men should live and move | Y |
Harmonious as the sacred stars above | V |
- | |
And how all things that seem untameable | T |
Not to be checked and not to be confined | P |
Obey the spells of Wisdom's wizard skill | T |
Time earth and fire the ocean and the wind | P |
And all their shapes and man's imperial will | T |
And other scrolls whose writings did unbind | P |
The inmost lore of love let the profane | C |
Tremble to ask what secrets they contain | C |
- | |
And wondrous works of substances unknown | C |
To which the enchantment of her Father's power | F |
Had changed those ragged blocks of savage stone | C |
Were heaped in the recesses of her bower | F |
Carved lamps and chalices and phials which shone | C |
In their own golden beams each like a flower | F |
Out of whose depth a firefly shakes his light | P |
Under a cypress in a starless night | P |
- | |
At first she lived alone in this wild home | Z |
And her own thoughts were each a minister | F |
Clothing themselves or with the ocean foam | Z |
Or with the wind or with the speed of fire | F |
To work whatever purposes might come | A2 |
Into her mind such power her mighty Sire | F |
Had girt them with whether to fly or run | C |
Through all the regions which he shines upon | C |
- | |
The Ocean nymphs and Hamadryades | D |
Oreads and Naiads with long weedy locks | D |
Offered to do her bidding through the seas | D |
Unde | P |
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Witch Of Atlas poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Best Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley