The Coronation Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AA BB CC CC DE FF GG HI CC JJ CC II C CC K K H K CC LL C M CCC KKAt Westminster hid from the light of day | A |
Many who once had shone as monarchs lay | A |
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Edward the Pious and two Edwards more | B |
The second Richard Henrys three or four | B |
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That is to say those who were called the Third | C |
Fifth Seventh and Eighth the much self widowered | C |
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And James the Scot and near him Charles the Second | C |
And too the second George could there be reckoned | C |
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Of women Mary and Queen Elizabeth | D |
And Anne all silent in a musing death | E |
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And Williams Mary and Mary Queen of Scots | F |
And consort queens whose names oblivion blots | F |
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And several more whose chronicle one sees | G |
Adorning ancient royal pedigrees | G |
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Now as they drowsed on freed from Life's old thrall | H |
And heedless save of things exceptional | I |
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Said one 'What means this throbbing thudding sound | C |
That reaches to us here from overground | C |
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'A sound of chisels augers planes and saws | J |
Infringing all ecclesiastic laws | J |
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'And these tons weight of timber on us pressed | C |
Unfelt here since we entered into rest | C |
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'Surely at least to us being corpses royal | I |
A meet repose is owing by the loyal | I |
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' Perhaps a scaffold ' Mary Stuart sighed | C |
'If such still be It was that way I died ' | - |
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' Ods Far more like ' said he the many wived | C |
'That for a wedding 'tis this works contrived | C |
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'Ha ha I never would bow down to Rimmon | K |
But I had a rare time with those six women ' | - |
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'Not all at once ' gasped he who loved confession | K |
'Nay nay ' said Hal 'That would have been transgression ' | - |
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They build a catafalque here black and tall | H |
Perhaps ' mused Richard 'for some funeral ' | - |
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And Anne chimed in 'Ah yes it may be so ' | - |
'Nay ' squeaked Eliza 'Little you seem to know | K |
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'Clearly 'tis for some crowning here in state | C |
As they crowned us at our long bygone date | C |
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'Though we'd no such a power of carpentry | L |
But let the ancient architecture be | L |
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'If I were up there where the parsons sit | C |
In one of my gold robes I'd see to it ' | - |
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'But you are not ' Charles chuckled 'You are here | M |
And never will know the sun again my dear ' | - |
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'Yea ' whispered those whom no one had addressed | C |
'With slow sad march amid a folk distressed | C |
We were brought here to take our dusty rest | C |
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'And here alas in darkness laid below | K |
We'll wait and listen and endure the show | K |
Clamour dogs kingship afterwards not so ' | - |
Thomas Hardy
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