Ossian-s Grave Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIIIJKLMNOIPQ RSDIDTUIQVWAKXYXGIII OXXQZA2QXI XB2KDDC2DED2B2XAE2DF 2 KXIDG2IDXIDDDDXDXH2X KDI2DDGXD| PREHISTORIC MONUMENT NEAR CUSHENDALL | A |
| IN ANTRIM | B |
| Steep up in Lubitavish townland stands | C |
| A ring of great stones like fangs the shafts of the stones | D |
| Grown up with thousands of years of gradual turf | E |
| The fangs of the stones still biting skyward and hard | F |
| Against the stone ring the oblong enclosure | G |
| Of an old grave guarded with erect slabs gray rocks | H |
| Backed by broken thorn trees over the gorge of Glenaan | I |
| It is called Ossian's Grave Ossian rests high then | I |
| Haughtily alone | I |
| If there were any fame or burial or monument | J |
| For me to envy | K |
| Warrior and poet they should be yours and yours | L |
| For this is the pure fame not caged in a poem | M |
| Fabulous a glory untroubled with works a name in the north | N |
| Like a mountain in the mist like Aura | O |
| Heavy with heather and the dark gray rocks or Trostan | I |
| Dark purple in the cloud happier than what the wings | P |
| And imperfections of work hover like vultures | Q |
| Above the carcass | R |
| I also make a remembered name | S |
| And I shall return home to the granite stones | D |
| On my cliff over the greatest ocean | I |
| To be blind ashes under the butts of the stones | D |
| As you here under the fanged limestone columns | T |
| Are said to lie over the narrow north straits | U |
| Toward Scotland and the quick tempered Moyle But written | I |
| reminders | Q |
| Will blot for too long a year the bare sunlight | V |
| Above my rock lair heavy black birds | W |
| Over the field and the blood of the lost battle | A |
| Oh but we lived splendidly | K |
| In the brief light of day | X |
| Who now twist in our graves | Y |
| You in the guard of the fanged | X |
| Erect stones and the man slayer | G |
| Shane O'Neill dreams yonder at Cushendun | I |
| Crushed under his cairn | I |
| And Hugh McQuillan under his cairn | I |
| By his lost field in the bog on Aura | O |
| And I a foreigner one who has come to the country of the dead | X |
| Before I was called | X |
| To eat the bitter dust of my ancestors | Q |
| And thousands on tens of thousands in the thronged earth | Z |
| Under the rotting freestone tablets | A2 |
| At the bases of broken round towers | Q |
| And the great Connaught queen on her mountain summit | X |
| The high cloud hoods it creeps through the eyes of the cairn | I |
| - | |
| We dead have our peculiar pleasures of not | X |
| Doing of not feeling of not being | B2 |
| Enough has been felt enough done Oh and surely | K |
| Enough of humanity has been We lie under stones | D |
| Or drift through the endless northern twilights | D |
| And draw over our pale survivors the net of our dream | C2 |
| All their lives are less | D |
| Substantial than one of our deaths and they cut turf | E |
| Or stoop in the steep | D2 |
| Short furrows or drive the red carts like weeds waving | B2 |
| Under the glass of water in a locked bay | X |
| Which neither the wind nor the wave nor their own will | A |
| Moves when they seem to awake | E2 |
| It is only to madden in their dog days for memories of dreams | D |
| That lost all meaning many centuries ago | F2 |
| - | |
| Oh but we lived splendidly | K |
| In the brief light of day | X |
| You with hounds on the mountain | I |
| And princes in palaces | D |
| I on the western cliff | G2 |
| In the rages of the sun | I |
| Now you lie grandly under your stones | D |
| But I in a peasant's hut | X |
| Eat bread bitter with the dust of dead men | I |
| The water I draw at the spring has been shed for tears | D |
| Ten thousand times | D |
| Or wander through the endless northern twilights | D |
| From the rath to the cairn through fields | D |
| Where every field stone's been handled | X |
| Ten thousand times | D |
| In a uterine country soft | X |
| And wet and worn out like an old womb | H2 |
| That I have returned to being dead | X |
| - | |
| Oh but we lived splendidly | K |
| Who now twist in our graves | D |
| The mountains are alive | I2 |
| Tievebuilleagh lives Trostan lives | D |
| Lurigethan lives | D |
| And Aura the black faced sheep in the belled heather | G |
| And the swan haunted loughs but also a few of us dead | X |
| A life as inhuman and cold as those | D |
Robinson Jeffers
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
About Ossian-s Grave
Ossian-s Grave is a poem by Robinson Jeffers. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
Write your comment about Ossian-s Grave poem by Robinson Jeffers
Best Poems of Robinson Jeffers