Barcaroles. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCDC EFEFGF HIHIJI KLKLML KBKBMB A NJOJP QRERS SRORO OIBOI IRTRE EUVUW WXDXR RYZYA2 A X A2B2B2XXB2 IXXIIX RJJRRJ NFFNNF C2 BBC2BC2 D2A2A2D2A2D2 A2EEA2A2EI | A |
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Over the lapsing lagune all the day | B |
Urging my gondola with oar strokes light | C |
Always beside one shadowy waterway | B |
I pause and peer with eager jealous sight | C |
Toward the Piazza where Pepita stands | D |
Wooing the hungry pigeons from their flight | C |
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Dark the canal but she shines like the sun | E |
With yellow hair and dreaming wine brown eyes | F |
Thick crowd the doves for food She gives ME none | E |
She sees and will not see Vain are my sighs | F |
One slow reluctant stroke Aha she turns | G |
Gestures and smiles with coy and feigned surprise | F |
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Shifting and baffling is our Lido track | H |
Blind and bewildering all the currents flow | I |
Me they perplex not In the midnight black | H |
I hold my way secure and fearless row | I |
But ah what chart have I to her my Sea | J |
Whose fair mysterious depths I long to know | I |
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Subtle as sad mirage true and untrue | K |
She seems and pressing ever on in vain | L |
I yearn across the mocking tempting blue | K |
Never she draws more near never I gain | L |
A furlong's space toward where she sits and a miles | M |
Smiles and cares nothing for my love and pain | L |
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How shall I win her What may strong arm do | K |
Against such gentle distance I can say | B |
No more than this that when she stands to woo | K |
The doves beside the shadowy waterway | B |
And when I look and long sometimes she smiles | M |
Perhaps she will do more than smile one day | B |
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II | A |
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Light and darkness brown and fair | N |
Ha they think I do not see | J |
I behind them swiftly rowing | O |
Rowing Yes but eyes are free | J |
Eyes and fancies | P |
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Now what fire in looks and glances | Q |
Now the dark head bends grown bolder | R |
Ringlets mingle silence broken | E |
All unconscious of beholder | R |
By a kiss | S |
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What could lovers ask or miss | S |
In such moonlight such June weather | R |
But a boat like this me rowing | O |
And forever and together | R |
To be floating | O |
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Ah if she and I such boating | O |
Might but share one day some fellow | I |
With strong arms behind Pasquale | B |
Or Luigi with gay awning | O |
She likes yellow | I |
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She I mean Pepita mellow | I |
Moonlight on the waves no other | R |
To break silence or catch whispers | T |
All the love which now I smother | R |
Told and spoken | E |
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Listened to a kiss for token | E |
How my Signor What so soon | U |
Homeward bound We born of Venice | V |
Live by night and nap by noon | U |
If 'twere me now | W |
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With my brown eyed girl this prow | W |
Would not turn for hours still | X |
But the Signor bids commands | D |
I am here to do his will | X |
He is master | R |
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Glide we on so faster faster | R |
Now the two are safely landed | Y |
Buono mano grazie Signor | Z |
They who love are open handed | Y |
Now Pepita | A2 |
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III | A |
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TORCELLO | X |
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She has said yes and the world is a smite | A2 |
There she sits as she sat in my dream | B2 |
There she sits and the blue waves gleam | B2 |
And the current bears us along the while | X |
For happy mile after happy mile | X |
A fairy boat on a fairy stream | B2 |
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The Angelus bells siring to and fro | I |
And the sunset lingers to hear their swell | X |
For the sunset loves such music well | X |
A big bright moon is hovering low | I |
Where the edge of the sky is all aglow | I |
Like the middle heart of a red red shell | X |
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The Lido floats like a purple flower | R |
Orange and rose are the sails at sea | J |
Silk and pink the surf line free | J |
Tumbles and chimes and the perfect hour | R |
Clasps us and folds us in its power | R |
Folds us and holds us my love and me | J |
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Can there be sadness anywhere | N |
In the world to night Or tears or sighs | F |
Beneath such festal moon and skies | F |
Can there be memory or despair | N |
What is it beloved Why point you there | N |
With sudden dew in those dearest eyes | F |
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Yes one sad thing on the happy earth | C2 |
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Like a mourner's veil in the bridal array | B |
Or a sorrowful sigh in the music gay | B |
A shade on the sun in the feast a dearth | C2 |
Drawn like a ghost across our way | B |
Torcello sits and rebukes our mirth | C2 |
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She sits a widow who sat as queen | D2 |
Ashes on brows once crowned and bright | A2 |
Woe in the eyes once full of light | A2 |
Her sad fair roses and manifold green | D2 |
All bitter and pallid and heavy with night | A2 |
Are full of the shadows of woes unseen | D2 |
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Let us hurry away from her face unblest | A2 |
Row us away for the song is done | E |
The Angelus bells cease one by one | E |
Pepita's head lies on my breast | A2 |
But trembling and full of a vague unrest | A2 |
I long for the morrow and for the sun | E |
Susan Coolidge (sarah Chauncey Woolsey)
(1)
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