Lycus The Centaur Poem Rhyme Scheme

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FROM AN UNROLLED MANUSCRIPT OF APOLLONIUS CURIUS	A
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The Argument Lycus detained by Circe in her magical dominion is beloved by a Water Nymph who desiring to render him immortal has recourse to the Sorceress Circe gives her an incantation to pronounce which should turn Lycus into a horse but the horrible effect of the charm causing her to break off in the midst he becomes a Centaur	B
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Who hath ever been lured and bound by a spell	C
To wander fore doomed in that circle of hell	C
Where Witchery works with her will like a god	D
Works more than the wonders of time at a nod	D
At a word at a touch at a flash of the eye	E
But each form is a cheat and each sound is a lie	E
Things born of a wish to endure for a thought	F
Or last for long ages to vanish to nought	F
Or put on new semblance O Jove I had given	G
The throne of a kingdom to know if that heaven	G
And the earth and its streams were of Circe or whether	H
They kept the world's birthday and brighten'd together	H
For I loved them in terror and constantly dreaded	F
That the earth where I trod and the cave where I bedded	F
The face I might dote on should live out the lease	A
Of the charm that created and suddenly cease	A
And I gave me to slumber as if from one dream	I
To another each horrid and drank of the stream	I
Like a first taste of blood lest as water I quaff'd	F
Swift poison and never should breathe from the draught	F
Such drink as her own monarch husband drain'd up	J
When he pledged her and Fate closed his eyes in the cup	J
And I pluck'd of the fruit with held breath and a fear	K
That the branch would start back and scream out in my ear	L
For once at my suppering I plucked in the dusk	M
An apple juice gushing and fragrant of musk	M
But by daylight my fingers were crimson'd with gore	B
And the half eaten fragment was flesh at the core	B
And once only once for the love of its blush	N
I broke a bloom bough but there came such a gush	N
On my hand that it fainted away in weak fright	F
While the leaf hidden woodpecker shriek'd at the sight	F
And oh such an agony thrill'd in that note	F
That my soul startling up beat its wings in my throat	F
As it long'd to be free of a body whose hand	F
Was doom'd to work torments a Fury had plann'd	F
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There I stood without stir yet how willing to flee	O
As if rooted and horror turn'd into a tree	O
Oh for innocent death and to suddenly win it	F
I drank of the stream but no poison was in it	F
I plunged in its waters but ere I could sink	P
Some invisible fate pull'd me back to the brink	P
I sprang from the rock from its pinnacle height	F
But fell on the grass with a grasshopper's flight	F
I ran at my fears they were fears and no more	B
For the bear would not mangle my limbs nor the boar	B
But moan'd all their brutalized flesh could not smother	H
The horrible truth we were kin to each other	H
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They were mournfully gentle and group'd for relief	Q
All foes in their skin but all friends in their grief	Q
The leopard was there baby mild in its feature	H
And the tiger black barr'd with the gaze of a creature	H
That knew gentle pity the bristle back'd boar	B
His innocent tusks stain'd with mulberry gore	B
And the laughing hyena but laughing no more	B
And the snake not with magical orbs to devise	A
Strange death but with woman's attraction of eyes	A
The tall ugly ape that still bore a dim shine	R
Through his hairy eclipse of a manhood divine	R
And the elephant stately with more than its reason	G
How thoughtful in sadness but this is no season	G
To reckon them up from the lag bellied toad	F
To the mammoth whose sobs shook his ponderous load	F
There were woes of all shapes wretched forms when I came	S
That hung down their heads with a human like shame	S
The elephant hid in the boughs and the bear	T
Shed over his eyes the dark veil of his hair	T
And the womanly soul turning sick with disgust	F
Tried to vomit herself from her serpentine crust	F
While all groan'd their groans into one at their lot	F
As I brought them the image of what they were not	F
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Then rose a wild sound of the human voice choking	U
Through vile brutal organs low tremulous croaking	U
Cries swallow'd abruptly deep animal tones	A
Attuned to strange passion and full utter'd groans	A
All shuddering weaken till hush'd in a pause	A
Of tongues in mute motion and wide yawning jaws	A
And I guessed that those horrors were meant to tell o'er	H
The tale of their woes but the silence told more	B
That writhed on their tongues and I knelt on the sod	F
And pray'd with my voice to the cloud stirring god	F
For the sad congregation of supplicants there	T
That upturn'd to his heaven brute faces of prayer	T
And I ceased and they utter'd a moaning so deep	V
That I wept for my heart ease but they could not weep	V
And gazed with red eyeballs all wistfully dry	E
At the comfort of tears in a stag's human eye	E
Then I motion'd them round and to soothe their distress	A
I caress'd and they bent them to meet my caress	A
Their necks to my arm and their heads to my palm	W
And with poor grateful eyes suffer'd meekly and calm	W
Those tokens of kindness withheld by hard fate	F
From returns that might chill the warm pity to hate	F
So they passively bow'd save the serpent that leapt	F
To my breast like a sister and pressingly crept	F
In embrace of my neck and with close kisses blister'd	F
My lips in rash love then drew backward and glister'd	F
Her eyes in my face and loud hissing affright	F
Dropt down but swift started away from my sight	F
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This sorrow was theirs but thrice wretched my lot	F
Turn'd brute in my soul though my body was not	F
When I fled from the sorrow of womanly faces	A
That shrouded their woe in the shade of lone places	A
And dash'd off bright tears till their fingers were wet	F
And then wiped their lids with long tresses of jet	F
But I fled though they stretch'd out their hands all entangled	F
With hair and blood stain'd of the breasts they had mangled	F
Though they call'd and perchance but to ask had I seen	X
Their loves or to tell the vile wrongs that had been	Y
But I stayed not to hear lest the story should hold	F
Some hell form of words some enchantment once told	F
Might translate me in flesh to a brute and I dreaded	F
To gaze on their charms lest my faith should be wedded	F
With some pity and love in that pity perchance	A
To a thing not all lovely for once at glance	A
Methought where one sat I descried a bright wonder	H
That flow'd like a long silver rivulet under	H
The long fenny grass with so lovely a breast	F
Could it be a snake tail made the charm of the rest	F
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So I roamed in that circle of horrors and Fear	K
Walk'd with me by hills and in valleys and near	K
Cluster'd trees for their gloom not to shelter from heat	F
But lest a brute shadow should grow at my feet	F
And besides that full oft in the sunshiny place	A
Dark shadows would gather like clouds on its face	A
In the horrible likeness of demons that none	G
Could see like invisible flames in the sun	G
But grew to one monster that seized on the light	F
Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night	F
Fierce sphinxes long serpents and asps of the south	Z
Wild birds of huge beak and all horrors that drouth	Z
Engenders of slime in the land of the pest	F
Vile shapes without shape and foul bats of the West	F
Bringing Night on their wings and the bodies wherein	Y
Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin	Y
Many handed that blent in one phantom of fight	F
Like a Titan and threatfully warr'd with the light	F
I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close	A
When they rushed on that shadowy Python of foes	A
That met with sharp beaks and wide gaping of jaws	A
With flappings of wings and fierce grasping of claws	A
And whirls of long tails I have seen the quick flutter	H
Of fragment	F

Thomas Hood

Lycus The Centaur Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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