Palmyra (2nd Edition) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABC DEDEAAFFGGHHIIDDJJKK LL MNMNOPOPQRHRR SSTTRRRRPPUVSVRRRRPP PTWWPTXKXKIIYPPYXXYY BPUPPCPCRR YYOOPPYYRRRR UYUYYYAAYPPYRZZA2RA2 YYYYAAYYB2YB2YPRPR RRRC2C2RXOXO PPPPYYRPRPYD2YD2PPUU YYZZ YOYOYE2YE2XYXYPPRAAR F2PF2PYRYROG2PPPPYYanankta ton pant n huperbal | A |
lonta chronon makar n | B |
Pindar Hymn frag | C |
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Spirit of the days of yore | D |
Thou who in thy haunted cave | E |
By the torrent's sounding shore | D |
Mark'st the autumnal tempest rave | E |
Or where on some ivied wall | A |
Twilight mingled moonbeams fall | A |
Deep in aisles and cloisters dim | F |
Hear'st the grey monks' verpser hymn | F |
Or beneath the cypress shade | G |
Where forgotten chiefs are laid | G |
Pacing slow with solemn tread | H |
Breathest the verse that wakes the dead | H |
By the ivied convent lone | I |
By the Runic warrior's stone | I |
By the mountain cataract's roar | D |
Spirit thee I seek no more | D |
Let me remote from earthly care | J |
Thy philosophic vigils share | J |
Amid the wrecks of ancient time | K |
More sad more solemn more sublime | K |
Where half sunk in seas of sand | L |
Thedmor's marble wastes expand | L |
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These silent wrecks more eloquent than speech | M |
Full many a tale of awful note impart | N |
Truths more severe than bard or sage can teach | M |
This pomp of ruin presses on the heart | N |
Sad through the palm the evening breezes sigh | O |
No sound of man the solitude pervades | P |
Where shattered forms of ancient monarchs lie | O |
Mid grass grown halls and falling colonnades | P |
Beneath the drifting sand the clustering weed | Q |
Rest the proud relics of departed power | R |
None may the trophy cinctured tablet read | H |
On votive urn or monumental tower | R |
Nor tell whose wasted forms the mouldering tombs embower | R |
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Enthusiast fancy robed in light | S |
Dispels oblivion's deepening night | S |
Her charms a solemn train unfold | T |
Sublime on evening clouds of gold | T |
Of sceptred kings in proud array | R |
And laurelled chiefs and sages grey | R |
But whose the forms oh fame declare | R |
That crowd majestic on the air | R |
Pour from thy deathless roll the praise | P |
Of kings renowned in elder days | P |
I call in vain The welcome strain | U |
Of praise to them no more shall sound | V |
Their actions bright must sleep in night | S |
Till time shall cease his mystic round | V |
The glories of their ancient sway | R |
The stream of years has swept away | R |
Their names that nations heard with fear | R |
Shall ring no more on mortal ear | R |
Yet still the muse's eye may trace | P |
The noblest chief of Thedmor's race | P |
Who by Euphrates' startling waves | P |
Bade outraged Rome her prostrate might unfold | T |
Tore from the brow of Persia's pride | W |
The wreath in crimson victory dyed | W |
And o'er his flying slaves | P |
Tumultuous ruin rolled | T |
Throned by his side a lovely form | X |
In youthful majesty sublime | K |
Like sun beams through the scattering storm | X |
Shines through the floating mists of time | K |
Even as in other years she shone | I |
When here she fixed her desert throne | I |
Triumphant in the transient smiles of fate | Y |
When Zabdas led her conquering bands | P |
O'er Asia's many peopled lands | P |
And subject monarchs thronged her palace gate | Y |
Ere yet stern war's avenging storm | X |
Captivity's dejected form | X |
And death in solitude and darkness furled | Y |
Closed round the setting star that ruled the eastern world | Y |
- | |
Dim shades around her move again | B |
From memory blotted by the lapse of years | P |
Yet foremost in the sacred train | U |
The venerable sage appears | P |
Who once these desolate arcades | P |
And time worn porticoes among | C |
Disclosed to princely youths and high born maids | P |
The secret fountains of M onian song | C |
And traced the mazy warblings of the lyre | R |
With all a critic's art and all a poet's fire | R |
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What mystic form uncouth and dread | Y |
With withered cheek and hoary head | Y |
Swift as the death fire cleaves the sky | O |
Swept on sounding pinions by | O |
'Twas Time I know the foe of kings | P |
His scythe and sand and eagle wings | P |
He cast a burning look around | Y |
And waved his bony hand and frowned | Y |
Far from the spectre's scowl of fire | R |
Fancy's feeble forms retire | R |
Her air born phantoms melt away | R |
Like stars before the rising day | R |
- | |
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One shadowy tint enwraps the plain | U |
No form is near no steps intrude | Y |
To break the melancholy reign | U |
Of silence and of solitude | Y |
Ah little thought the wealthy proud | Y |
When rosy pleasure laughed aloud | Y |
And music with symphonious swell | A |
Attuned to joy her festal shell | A |
That here amid their ancient land | Y |
The wanderer of the distant days | P |
Should mark with sorrow clouded gaze | P |
The mighty wilderness of sand | Y |
While not a sound should meet his ear | R |
Save of the desert gales that sweep | Z |
In modulated murmurs deep | Z |
The wasted graves above | A2 |
Of those who once had revelled here | R |
In happiness and love | A2 |
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Short is the space to man assigned | Y |
His earthly vale to tread | Y |
He wanders erring weak and blind | Y |
By adverse passions led | Y |
Love that with feeling's tenderest flow | A |
To rapture turns divided woe | A |
And brightens every smile of fate | Y |
That kindred souls participate | Y |
Jealousy whose poisonous breath | B2 |
Blasts affection's opening bud | Y |
Wild despair that laughs in death | B2 |
Stern revenge that bathes in blood | Y |
Fear that his form in darkness shrouds | P |
And trembles at the whispering air | R |
And hope that pictures on the clouds | P |
Celestial visions false but fair | R |
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From the earliest twilight ray | R |
That marked creation's natal day | R |
Till yesterday's declining fire | R |
Thus still have rolled perplexed by strife | C2 |
he many mingling wheels of life | C2 |
And still shall roll till time's last beams expire | R |
And thus in every age in every clime | X |
While years swift circling fly | O |
The varying deeds that mark the present time | X |
Will be but shadows of the days gone by | O |
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Swift as the meteor's midnight course | P |
Swift as the cataract's headlong force | P |
Swift as the clouds whose changeful forms | P |
Hang on the rear of flying storms | P |
So swift is Time's colossal stride | Y |
Above the wrecks of human pride | Y |
These temples awful in decay | R |
Whose ancient splendor half endures | P |
These arches dim in parting day | R |
These dust defiled entablatures | P |
These shafts whose prostrate pride around | Y |
The desert weed entwines its wreath | D2 |
These capitals that strew the ground | Y |
Their shattered colonnades beneath | D2 |
These pillars white in lengthening files | P |
Grey tombs and broken peristyles | P |
May yet through many an age retain | U |
The pomp of Thedmor's wasted reign | U |
But Time still shakes with giant tread | Y |
The marble city of the dead | Y |
That crushed at last a shapeless heap | Z |
Beneath the drifted sands shall sleep | Z |
- | |
The flower that drinks the morning dew | Y |
Far on the evening gale shall fly | O |
The bark that glides o'er ocean blue | Y |
Dashed on the distant rocks shall lie | O |
The tower that frowns in martial pride | Y |
Shall by the lightning brand be riven | E2 |
The arch that spans the summer tide | Y |
Shall down the wintry floods be driven | E2 |
The tomb that guards the great one's name | X |
Shall yield to time its sacred trust | Y |
The laurel of imperial fame | X |
Shall wither in unwatered dust | Y |
His mantle dark oblivion flings | P |
Around the monuments of kings | P |
Who once to conquest shouting myriads bore | R |
Fame's trumpet blast and victory's clarion shrill | A |
Pass like an echo of the hill | A |
That breathes one wild response and then is heard no more | R |
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But ne'er shall earthly time throw down | F2 |
The immortal pile that virtue rears | P |
Her golden throne and starry crown | F2 |
Decay not with revolving years | P |
For He whose solemn voice controlled | Y |
Necessity's mysterious sway | R |
And yon vast orbs from chaos rolled | Y |
Along the elliptic paths of day | R |
Has fixed her empire vast and high | O |
Where primogenial harmony | G2 |
Unites in ever cloudless skies | P |
Affection's death divided ties | P |
Where wisdom with unwearying gaze | P |
The universal scheme surveys | P |
And truth in central light enshrined | Y |
Leads to its source sublime the indissoluble mind | Y |
Thomas Love Peacock
(1)
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