The Last Caesar Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCCBBCCB CCCDDB A EFFEEFFE GHI JCI A BBBBBBBB KLG KLL BBLL MNCCLLCC BBCCAAOO BBCC PPBBHHCCCCBBQQBBCCCF FRR MMI | A |
- | |
Now there was one who came in later days | B |
To play at Emperor in the dead of night | C |
Stole crown and sceptre and stood forth to light | C |
In sudden purple The dawn's straggling rays | B |
Showed Paris fettered murmuring in amaze | B |
With red hands at her throat a piteous sight | C |
Then the new C sar stricken with affright | C |
At his own daring shrunk from public gaze | B |
- | |
In the Elys e and had lost the day | C |
But that around him flocked his birds of prey | C |
Sharp beaked voracious hungry for the deed | C |
'Twixt hope and fear beheld great C sar hang | D |
Meanwhile methinks a ghostly laughter rang | D |
Through the rotunda of the Invalides | B |
- | |
II | A |
- | |
What if the boulevards at set of sun | E |
Reddened but not with the sunset's kindly glow | F |
What if from quai and square the murmured woe | F |
Swept heavenward pleadingly The prize was won | E |
A kingling made and Liberty undone | E |
No Emperor this like him awhile ago | F |
But his Name's shadow that one struck the blow | F |
Himself the street sweeping gun | E |
- | |
This was a man of tortuous heart and brain | G |
So warped he knew not his own point of view | H |
The master of a dark mysterious smile | I |
- | |
And there he plotted by the storied Seine | J |
And in the fairy gardens of St Cloud | C |
The Sphinx that puzzled Europe for awhile | I |
- | |
III | A |
- | |
I see him as men saw him once a face | B |
Of true Napoleon pallor round the eyes | B |
The wrinkled care mustache spread pinion wise | B |
Pointing his smile with odd sardonic grace | B |
As wearily he turns him in his place | B |
And bends before the hoarse Parisian cries | B |
Then vanishes with glitter of gold lace | B |
And trumpets blaring to the patient skies | B |
- | |
Not thus he vanished later On his path | K |
The Furies waited for the hour and man | L |
Foreknowing that they waited not in vain | G |
- | |
Then fell the day o day of dreadful wrath | K |
Bow down in shame O crimson girt Sedan | L |
Weep fair Alsace weep loveliest Lorainne | L |
- | |
So mused I sitting underneath the trees | B |
In that old garden of the Tuileries | B |
Watching the dust of twilight sifting down | L |
Through chestnut boughs just touched with autumn's brown | L |
- | |
Not twilight yet but that illusive bloom | M |
Which holds before the deep edged shadows come | N |
For still the garden stood in golden mist | C |
Still like a river of golden amethyst | C |
The Seine slipt through its pans of fretted stone | L |
And near the grille that once fenced in a throne | L |
The fountains still unbraided to the day | C |
The unsubstantial silver of their spray | C |
- | |
A spot to dream in love in waste one's hours | B |
Temples and palaces and gilded towers | B |
And fairy terraces and yet and yet | C |
Here in her woe came Marie Antoinette | C |
Came sweet Corday Du Barry with shrill cry | A |
Not learning from her betters how to die | A |
Here while the nations watched with bated breath | O |
Was held the saturnalia of Red Death | O |
- | |
For where that slim Egyptian shaft uplifts | B |
Its point to catch the dawn's and sunset's drifts | B |
Of various gold the busy Headsman stood | C |
Place de la Concorde no the Place of Blood | C |
- | |
And all so peaceful now one cannot bring | P |
Imagination to accept the thing | P |
Lies all of it some dreamer's wild romance | B |
High hearted witty laughter loving France | B |
In whose brain was it that the legend grew | H |
Of M nads shrieking in this avenue | H |
Of watch fires burning Famine standing guard | C |
Of long speared Uhlans in that palace yard | C |
What ruder sound this soft air ever smote | C |
Than a bird's twitter or a bugle's note | C |
What darker crimson ever splashed these walks | B |
Than that of rose leaves dropping from the stalks | B |
And yet what means that charred and broken wall | Q |
That sculptured marble splintered like to fall | Q |
Looming among the trees there And you say | B |
This happened as it were but yesterday | B |
And here the commune stretched a barricade | C |
And there the final desperate stand was made | C |
Such things have been How all things change and fade | C |
How little lasts in this brave world below | F |
Love dies hate cools the C sars come and go | F |
Gaunt Hunger fattens and the weak grow strong | R |
Even Republics are not here for long | R |
- | |
Ah who can tell what hour may bring the doom | M |
The lighted torch the tocsin's heavy boom | M |
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Last Caesar poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
Best Poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich