The Sibyls Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACDECF FBG HGIHJKLMNK FOPQPRDC CENSTTCUEVWXP YXZA2IB2C2D2E2F2EUG2 H2CCCI2J2IC IIPDPWK2IL2M2M2OPYOU H2PC2 N2N2 CO2P2CO2C Q2PCNCR2INS2BC2BT2IU 2IPV2A2 W2BX2PPIY2PPZ2BA3 CPK2I PBB3B3CZ2CCIIIICIC3IRending the waters of a night unknown | A |
The ship with tireless pulses bore me | B |
On the shadowy deck musing late and lone | A |
Over waste ocean | C |
The rustling of the cordage in the dewy wind | D |
And the sound of idle surges | E |
Falling prolonged and for ever again upthrown | C |
Drowsed me I slept I dreamed | F |
- | |
Out of the seas that streamed | F |
In ghostly turbulence moving and glimmering about me | B |
I saw the rising of vast and visionary forms | G |
- | |
Like clouds like continents of cloud they rose | H |
August as the shape of storms | G |
In the silence before the thunder or of mountains | I |
Alone in a sky of sunken light they rose | H |
Slowly with shrouded grandeur | J |
Of queenly bosom and shoulder and afar | K |
Their countenances were lifted although veiled | L |
Although heavy as with thought and with silence | M |
In the heights where dimly gathered | N |
Star upon solitary star | K |
- | |
And it seemed to me as I dreamed | F |
That these were the forms of the Sibyls of old | O |
Prophetesses whose eyes were aflame with interior fire | P |
Who passionately prophesied and none comprehended | Q |
In the womb of whose thought was quickened the world's desire | P |
Who saw and because they saw chastised | R |
With voices terribly chanting on the wind | D |
The folly of the faithlessness of men | C |
- | |
But not as they haunted then | C |
In cavernous and wild places | E |
Each inaccessibly sequestered | N |
And sought with furtive steps | S |
Through wizard leaves of whispering laurel feared | T |
Now to me they appeared | T |
But rather like Queens of fabulous dominion | C |
Like Queens voices of a voiceless people | U |
Queens of old time with aweing faces | E |
With burdened brows but with proud eyes | V |
Assembled in solemn parley to shape | W |
Futurity and the nations' glory and doom | X |
They were met in the night together | P |
- | |
And lo beneath them | Y |
The immeasurable circle of the gloom | X |
Phantasmally disclosed | Z |
In apparition all the coasts of the world | A2 |
Veined with rivers afar to the frozen mountains | I |
And I saw the shadow of maniac Death | B2 |
Like a reveller there stagger glutted and gloating | C2 |
I saw murdered cities | D2 |
That raised like a stiffened arm | E2 |
One blackened tower to heaven I saw | F2 |
Processions of the homeless crawling into the distances | E |
And sullen leagues of interminable battle | U |
And peoples arming afar the very earth | G2 |
The very bowels of the earth infected | H2 |
With the rages and the agonies of men | C |
For a moment the vision gleamed and then was gone | C |
Gloom rushed down like rain | C |
But out of the midst of the darkness | I2 |
My flesh was aware of a sound | J2 |
The peopled sound of moving millions | I |
And the voices of human pain | C |
- | |
I lifted my gaze to the Sibyls | I |
The Sibyls of the Continents where they rose | I |
Looking one on another | P |
Ancestral Asia mother of musing mind | D |
Was there and over against her | P |
Towered in the gates of the West a shape | W |
Of youth gigantic troubled and vigilant | K2 |
Patient with eager dumbness in dark eyes | I |
Africa rose and ardent out of the South | L2 |
The youngest of those great sisters and proud | M2 |
With fame upon her for mantle and regal browed | M2 |
The stature of Europe old | O |
It seemed they listened to the murmur | P |
Of the anguished lands beneath them | Y |
In sombre reverberation rising and upward rolled | O |
Everywhere battle and arming for battle | U |
Famine and torture odour of burning and blood | H2 |
Doubt hatred terror | P |
Rage and lamenting | C2 |
- | |
I heard sweet Pity crying between the earth and sky | N2 |
But who had leisure for her call or who hearkened to her cry | N2 |
- | |
Not with our vision and not with our horizon | C |
The gaze of the Sibyls was filled | O2 |
Their trouble was trouble beyond the shaping of our fear | P2 |
Their hope full sailed upon oceans beyond our ken | C |
Their thoughts were the thoughts that build | O2 |
Towers for the dawn unseen | C |
- | |
But nearer than ever before | Q2 |
They drew to each other sister to shrouded sister | P |
Queen to superb Queen | C |
What counsel took they together or what word | N |
Of power and of parturition | C |
Passed their lips What saw they | R2 |
Conferring among the stars | I |
My blood tingled and I heard | N |
Syllables O too vast | S2 |
For capacity of my ears yet within me | B |
In the innermost bones and caves of my being | C2 |
I felt a voice like the voice of a sea | B |
And the sound of it seemed to be crying Endure | T2 |
Humble yourselves O dreamers of dreams | I |
In whose bosom is peril fiercer than fire or beast | U2 |
Humble yourselves O desolaters of your own dreams | I |
Then arise and remember | P |
Though now you cry in astonishment and anguish | V2 |
What have we done to the beauty of the world | A2 |
That ruins about us in ashes and blood ' | - |
Remember the Spirit that moulded and made you | W2 |
In the beauty of the body | B |
Shaped as the splendour of speech to thought | X2 |
The Spirit that wills with one desire | P |
With infinite else unsatisfied desire | P |
Peace not made by conquerors and armies | I |
Peace born in the soul that asks not shelter or a pillow | Y2 |
The peace of truth unshaken amid the thunder | P |
Unaffrighted by fury of shrivelling fire | P |
And neither time nor tempest | Z2 |
Neither slumber nor calamity | B |
Neither rending of the flesh nor breaking of the heart | A3 |
Shall stay you from that desire '' | - |
- | |
That sound floated like a cloud in heaven | C |
Lingering and like an answer | P |
Came the sound of the rushing of spirits triumphant | K2 |
Of young men dying for a cause | I |
- | |
I lifted my eyes in wonder | P |
And silence filled me | B |
And with the silence I was aware | B3 |
Of a breath moving in the glimmer of the air | B3 |
The stars had vanished but again | C |
I beheld those Sibyls august | Z2 |
Over stilled ocean | C |
And on their faces the dawn | C |
Even as I looked they lifted up their heads | I |
They lifted their heads like eagles | I |
That slowly shake and widen their wondrous wings | I |
They arose and vanished like the stars | I |
The light of the changed world the world new born | C |
Brimmed over the silence of the seas | I |
But even in the rising of its beam | C3 |
I remembered the light in their eyes | I |
Robert Laurence Binyon
(1)
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