The Englishman In Italy Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BAAACDEDFGAGHIJIKACA FLCLMAAAFNCNCOPOAMQM RSTSUCFCCVCVVVWVAXFX AXAXYCACZA2XA2AXCXAF FFCFCFZAYACXFXZABAZX XXB2XC2XXCD2CFE2FE2F 2XSXXCTCFD2XD2AG2FG2 CXFXXAXAXXXXAVLH2FAZ AXAAAXSASAI2CI2AJ2XK 2XXBXAAZAXAXAYXAXAB2 TB2AL2TL2FAXAAVAVAFA FFH2XH2VAFAFXXXFM2FM 2FOAOXN2XO2XZAZ ZP2AP2XQ2R2Q2S2VCVFC XCT2ZFZCAXAXAXAAXFXA AXAFXCXU2V2BV2XAXAZC XCBD2FD2X XW2XXXEXPIANO DI SORRENTO | A |
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Fortu Frotu my beloved one | B |
Sit here by my side | A |
On my knees put up both little feet | A |
I was sure if I tried | A |
I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco | C |
Now open your eyes | D |
Let me keep you amused till he vanish | E |
In black from the skies | D |
With telling my memories over | F |
As you tell your beads | G |
All the memories plucked at Sorrento | A |
The flowers or the weeds | G |
Time for rain for your long hot dry Autumn | H |
Had net worked with brown | I |
The white skin of each grape on the bunches | J |
Marked like a quail's crown | I |
Those creatures you make such account of | K |
Whose heads specked with white | A |
Over brown like a great spider's back | C |
As I told you last night | A |
Your mother bites off for her supper | F |
Red ripe as could be | L |
Pomegranates were chapping and splitting | C |
In halves on the tree | L |
And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone | M |
Or in the thick dust | A |
On the path or straight out of the rock side | A |
Wherever could thrust | A |
Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock flower | F |
Its yellow face up | N |
For the prize were great butterflies fighting | C |
Some five for one cup | N |
So I guessed ere I got up this morning | C |
What change was in store | O |
By the quick rustle down of the quail nets | P |
Which woke me before | O |
I could open my shutter made fast | A |
With a bough and a stone | M |
And look through the twisted dead vine twigs | Q |
Sole lattice that's known | M |
Quick and sharp rang the rings down the net poles | R |
While busy beneath | S |
Your priest and his brother tugged at them | T |
The rain in their teeth | S |
And out upon all the flat house roofs | U |
Where split figs lay drying | C |
The girls took the frails under cover | F |
Nor use seemed in trying | C |
To get out the boats and go fishing | C |
For under the cliff | V |
Fierce the black water frothed o'er the blind rock | C |
No seeing our skiff | V |
Arrive about noon from Amalfi | V |
Our fisher arrive | V |
And pitch down his basket before us | W |
All trembling alive | V |
With pink and grey jellies your sea fruit | A |
You touch the strange lumps | X |
And mouths gape there eyes open all manner | F |
Of horns and of humps | X |
Which only the fisher looks grave at | A |
While round him like imps | X |
Cling screaming the children as naked | A |
And brown as his shrimps | X |
Himself too as bare to the middle | Y |
You see round his neck | C |
The string and its brass coin suspended | A |
That saves him from wreck | C |
But today not a boat reached Salerno | Z |
So back to a man | A2 |
Came our friends with whose help in the vineyards | X |
Grape harvest began | A2 |
In the vat half way up in our house side | A |
Like blood the juice spins | X |
While your brother all bare legged is dancing | C |
Till breathless he grins | X |
Dead beaten in effort on effort | A |
To keep the grapes under | F |
Since still when he seems all but master | F |
In pours the fresh plunder | F |
From girls who keep coming and going | C |
With basket on shoulder | F |
And eyes shut against the rain's driving | C |
Your girls that are older | F |
For under the hedges of aloe | Z |
And where on its bed | A |
Of the orchard's black mould the love apple | Y |
Lies pulpy and red | A |
All the young ones are kneeling and filling | C |
Their laps with the snails | X |
Tempted out by this first rainy weather | F |
Your best of regales | X |
As tonight will be proved to my sorrow | Z |
When supping in state | A |
We shall feast our grape gleaners two dozen | B |
Three over one plate | A |
With lasagne so tempting to swallow | Z |
In slippery ropes | X |
And gourds fried in great purple slices | X |
That colour of popes | X |
Meantime see the grape bunch they've brought you | B2 |
The rain water slips | X |
O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe | C2 |
Which the wasp to your lips | X |
Still follows with fretful persistence | X |
Nay taste while awake | C |
This half of a curd white smooth cheese ball | D2 |
That peels flake by flake | C |
Like an onion's each smoother and whiter | F |
Next sip this weak wine | E2 |
From the thin green glass flask with its stopper | F |
A leaf of the vine | E2 |
And end with the prickly pear's red flesh | F2 |
That leaves through its juice | X |
The stony black seeds on your pearl teeth | S |
Scirocco is loose | X |
Hark the quick whistling pelt of the olives | X |
Which thick in one's track | C |
Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them | T |
Though not yet half black | C |
How the old twisted olive trunks shudder | F |
The medlars let fall | D2 |
Their hard fruit and the brittle great fig trees | X |
Snap off figs and all | D2 |
For here comes the whole of the tempest | A |
No refuge but creep | G2 |
Back again to my side and my shoulder | F |
And listen or sleep | G2 |
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O how will your country show next week | C |
When all the vine boughs | X |
Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture | F |
The mules and the cows | X |
Last eve I rode over the mountains | X |
Your brother my guide | A |
Soon left me to feast on the myrtles | X |
That offered each side | A |
Their fruit balls black glossy and luscious | X |
Or strip from the sorbs | X |
A treasure so rosy and wondrous | X |
Of hairy gold orbs | X |
But my mule picked his sure sober path out | A |
Just stopping to neigh | V |
When he recognized down in the valley | L |
His mates on their way | H2 |
With the faggots and barrels of water | F |
And soon we emerged | A |
From the plain where the woods could scarce follow | Z |
And still as we urged | A |
Our way the woods wondered and left us | X |
As up still we trudged | A |
Though the wild path grew wilder each instant | A |
And place was e'en grudged | A |
'Mid the rock chasms and piles of loose stones | X |
Like the loose broken teeth | S |
Of some monster which climbed there to die | A |
From the ocean beneath | S |
Place was grudged to the silver grey fume weed | A |
That clung to the path | I2 |
And dark rosemary ever a dying | C |
That 'spite the wind's wrath | I2 |
So loves the salt rock's face to seaward | A |
And lentisks as staunch | J2 |
To the stone where they root and bear berries | X |
And what shows a branch | K2 |
Coral coloured transparent with circlets | X |
Of pale seagreen leaves | X |
Over all trod my mule with the caution | B |
Of gleaners o'er sheaves | X |
Still foot after foot like a lady | A |
So round after round | A |
He climbed to the top of Calvano | Z |
And God's own profound | A |
Was above me and round me the mountains | X |
And under the sea | A |
And within me my heart to bear witness | X |
What was and shall be | A |
Oh Heaven and the terrible crystal | Y |
No rampart excludes | X |
Your eye from the life to be lived | A |
In the blue solitudes | X |
Oh those mountains their infinite movement | A |
Still moving with you | B2 |
For ever some new head and breast of them | T |
Thrusts into view | B2 |
To observe the intruder you see it | A |
If quickly you turn | L2 |
And before they escape you surprise them | T |
They grudge you should learn | L2 |
How the soft plains they look on lean over | F |
And love they pretend | A |
Cower beneath them the flat sea pine crouches | X |
The wild fruit trees bend | A |
E'en the myrtle leaves curl shrink and shut | A |
All is silent and grave | V |
'Tis a sensual and timorous beauty | A |
How fair but a slave | V |
So I turned to the sea and there slumbered | A |
As greenly as ever | F |
Those isles of the siren your Galli | A |
No ages can sever | F |
The Three nor enable their sister | F |
To join them half way | H2 |
On the voyage she looked at Ulysses | X |
No farther today | H2 |
Though the small one just launched in the wave | V |
Watches breast high and steady | A |
From under the rock her bold sister | F |
Swum half way already | A |
Fortu shall we sail there together | F |
And see from the sides | X |
Quite new rocks show their faces new haunts | X |
Where the siren abides | X |
Shall we sail round and round them close over | F |
The rocks though unseen | M2 |
That ruffle the grey glassy water | F |
To glorious green | M2 |
Then scramble from splinter to splinter | F |
Reach land and explore | O |
On the largest the strange square black turret | A |
With never a door | O |
Just a loop to admit the quick lizards | X |
Then stand there and hear | N2 |
The birds' quiet singing that tells us | X |
What life is so clear | O2 |
The secret they sang to Ulysses | X |
When ages ago | Z |
He heard and he knew this life's secret | A |
I hear and I know | Z |
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Ah see The sun breaks o'er Calvano | Z |
He strikes the great gloom | P2 |
And flutters it o'er the mount's summit | A |
In airy gold fume | P2 |
All is over Look out see the gipsy | X |
Our tinker and smith | Q2 |
Has arrived set up bellows and forge | R2 |
And down squatted forthwith | Q2 |
To his hammering under the wall there | S2 |
One eye keeps aloof | V |
The urchins that itch to be putting | C |
His jews' harps to proof | V |
While the other through locks of curled wire | F |
Is watching how sleek | C |
Shines the hog come to share in the windfalls | X |
An abbot's own cheek | C |
All is over Wake up and come out now | T2 |
And down let us go | Z |
And see the fine things got in order | F |
At Church for the show | Z |
Of the Sacrament set forth this evening | C |
Tomorrow's the Feast | A |
Of the Rosary's Virgin by no means | X |
Of Virgins the least | A |
As you'll hear in the off hand discourse | X |
Which all nature no art | A |
The Dominican brother these three weeks | X |
Was getting by heart | A |
Not a post nor a pillar but's dizened | A |
With red and blue papers | X |
All the roof waves with ribbons each altar | F |
A blaze with long tapers | X |
But the great masterpiece is the scaffold | A |
Rigged glorious to hold | A |
All the fiddlers and fifers and drummers | X |
And trumpeters bold | A |
Not afraid of Bellini nor Auber | F |
Who when the priest's hoarse | X |
Will strike us up something that's brisk | C |
For the feast's second course | X |
And then will the flaxen wigged Image | U2 |
Be carried in pomp | V2 |
Through the plain while in gallant procession | B |
The priests mean to stomp | V2 |
And all round the glad church lie old bottles | X |
With gunpowder stopped | A |
Which will be when the Image re enters | X |
Religiously popped | A |
And at night from the crest of Calvano | Z |
Great bonfires will hang | C |
On the plain will the trumpets join chorus | X |
And more poppers bang | C |
At all events come to the garden | B |
As far as the wall | D2 |
See me tap with a hoe on the plaster | F |
Till out there shall fall | D2 |
A scorpion with wide angry nippers | X |
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Such trifles you say | X |
Fortu in my England at home | W2 |
Men meet gravely today | X |
And debate if abolishing Corn laws | X |
Is righteous and wise | X |
If 'tis proper Scirocco should vanish | E |
In black from the skies | X |
Robert Browning
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