Helen Of Troy Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIHJKLMNEOPQR BSMTUAVWXEYZNWA2LB2C 2HMD2E2BNEF2G2NIERC2 H2I2EJ2ZK2UBRL2M2 BHN2I2NO2BP2Q2C2Wild flight on flight against the fading dawn | A |
The flames' red wings soar upward duskily | B |
This is the funeral pyre and Troy is dead | C |
That sparkled so the day I saw it first | D |
And darkened slowly after I am she | E |
Who loves all beauty yet I wither it | F |
Why have the high gods made me wreak their wrath | G |
Forever since my maidenhood to sow | H |
Sorrow and blood about me Lo they keep | I |
Their bitter care above me even now | H |
It was the gods who led me to this lair | J |
That tho' the burning winds should make me weak | K |
They should not snatch the life from out my lips | L |
Olympus let the other women die | M |
They shall be quiet when the day is done | N |
And have no care to morrow Yet for me | E |
There is no rest The gods are not so kind | O |
To her made half immortal like themselves | P |
It is to you I owe the cruel gift | Q |
Leda my mother and the Swan my sire | R |
To you the beauty and to you the bale | B |
For never woman born of man and maid | S |
Had wrought such havoc on the earth as I | M |
Or troubled heaven with a sea of flame | T |
That climbed to touch the silent whirling stars | U |
And blotted out their brightness ere the dawn | A |
Have I not made the world to weep enough | V |
Give death to me Yet life is more than death | W |
How could I leave the sound of singing winds | X |
The strong sweet scent that breathes from off the sea | E |
Or shut my eyes forever to the spring | Y |
I will not give the grave my hands to hold | Z |
My shining hair to light oblivion | N |
Have those who wander through the ways of death | W |
The still wan fields Elysian any love | A2 |
To lift their breasts with longing any lips | L |
To thirst against the quiver of a kiss | B2 |
Lo I shall live to conquer Greece again | C2 |
To make the people love who hate me now | H |
My dreams are over I have ceased to cry | M |
Against the fate that made men love my mouth | D2 |
And left their spirits all too deaf to hear | E2 |
The little songs that echoed through my soul | B |
I have no anger now The dreams are done | N |
Yet since the Greeks and Trojans would not see | E |
Aught but my body's fairness till the end | F2 |
In all the islands set in all the seas | G2 |
And all the lands that lie beneath the sun | N |
Till light turn darkness and till time shall sleep | I |
Men's lives shall waste with longing after me | E |
For I shall be the sum of their desire | R |
The whole of beauty never seen again | C2 |
And they shall stretch their arms and starting wake | H2 |
With Helen on their lips and in their eyes | I2 |
The vision of me Always I shall be | E |
Limned on the darkness like a shaft of light | J2 |
That glimmers and is gone They shall behold | Z |
Each one his dream that fashions me anew | K2 |
With hair like lakes that glint beneath the stars | U |
Dark as sweet midnight or with hair aglow | B |
Like burnished gold that still retains the fire | R |
Yea I shall haunt until the dusk of time | L2 |
The heavy eyelids filled with fleeting dreams | M2 |
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I wait for one who comes with sword to slay | B |
The king I wronged who searches for me now | H |
And yet he shall not slay me I shall stand | N2 |
With lifted head and look within his eyes | I2 |
Baring my breast to him and to the sun | N |
He shall not have the power to stain with blood | O2 |
That whiteness for the thirsty sword shall fall | B |
And he shall cry and catch me in his arms | P2 |
Bearing me back to Sparta on his breast | Q2 |
Lo I shall live to conquer Greece again | C2 |
Sara Teasdale
(2)
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