Poseidon's Law Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CDEE FFGG HHII IIJJ KKLL JJMM| When the robust and Brass bound Man commissioned first for sea | A |
| His fragile raft Poseidon laughed and quot Mariner quot said he | A |
| quot Behold a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine | B |
| That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine | B |
| - | |
| quot Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin whose votive meal and sale | C |
| At easy cheated altars win oblivion for the fault | D |
| But you the unhoodwinked wave shall test the immediate gulf condemn | E |
| Except ye owe the Fates a jest be slow to jest with them | E |
| - | |
| Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech nor cozen from your path | F |
| The twinkling shoal the leeward beach or Hadria's white lipped wrath | F |
| Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud avenging hosts | G |
| Nor make at all or all make good your bulwarks and your boasts | G |
| - | |
| Now and henceforward serve unshod through wet and wakeful shifts | H |
| A present and oppressive God but take to aid my gifts | H |
| The wide and windward opening eye the large and lavish hand | I |
| The soul that cannot tell a lie except upon the land quot | I |
| - | |
| In dromond and in catafract wet wakeful windward eyed | I |
| He kept Poseidon's Law intact his ship and freight beside | I |
| But once discharged the dromond's hold the bireme beached once more | J |
| Splendaciously mendacious rolled the Brass bound Man ashore | J |
| - | |
| The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high | K |
| And where three hundred blades bit white the twin propellers ply | K |
| The God that hailed the keel that sailed are changed beyond recall | L |
| But the robust and Brass bound Man he is not changed at all | L |
| - | |
| From Punt returned from Phormio's Fleet from Javan and Gadire | J |
| He strongly occupies the seat about the tavern fire | J |
| And moist with much Falernian or smoked Massilian juice | M |
| Revenges there the Brass bound Man his long enforced truce | M |
Rudyard Kipling
(1)
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