Fragment - Her Last Day Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABABCDEFDEFCGGHHI JKBBLJJMNOMNJOEPPQEE RRQ ESEETSTUUEVVSVEVES SEEWSEXXFEYY EZA2NEENZA2EB2SEA2EC 2SZC2C2B2SIt was a day of sombre heat | A |
The still dense air was void of sound | B |
And life no wing of bird did beat | A |
A little breeze through it the ground | B |
Was like live ashes to the feet | A |
From the black hills that loomed around | B |
The valley many a sudden spire | C |
Of flame shot up and writhed and curled | D |
And sank again for heaviness | E |
And heavy seemed to men that day | F |
The burden of the weary world | D |
For evermore the sky did press | E |
Closer upon the earth that lay | F |
Fainting beneath as one in dire | C |
Dreams of the night upon whose breast | G |
Sits a black phantom of unrest | G |
That holds him down The earth and sky | H |
Appeared unto the troubled eye | H |
A roof of smoke a floor of fire | I |
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There was no water in the land | J |
Deep in the night of each ravine | K |
Men vainly searching for it found | B |
Dry hollows in the gaping ground | B |
Like sockets where clear eyes had been | L |
Now burnt out with a burning brand | J |
There was no water in the land | J |
But the salt sea tide that did roll | M |
Far past the places where till then | N |
The sweet streams met and flung it back | O |
The beds of little brooks that stole | M |
In spring time down each ferny glen | N |
And rippled over rock and sand | J |
Were drier than a cattle track | O |
A dull strange languor of disease | E |
That ever with the heat increased | P |
Fell upon man and bird and beast | P |
The thin flanked cattle gasped for breath | Q |
The birds dropped dead from drooping trees | E |
And men who drank the muddy lees | E |
From each near dry though deep dug well | R |
Grew faint and over all things fell | R |
A heavy stupor dank as Death | Q |
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Fierce Nature glaring with a face | E |
Of savage scorn at my despair | S |
Withered my heart From cone to base | E |
The hills were full of hollow eyes | E |
That rayed out darkness dead and dull | T |
Gray rocks grinned under ridges bare | S |
Like dry teeth in a mouldered skull | T |
And ghastly gum tree trunks did loom | U |
Out of black clefts and rifts of gloom | U |
As sheeted spectres that arise | E |
From yawning graves at dead of night | V |
To fill the living with affright | V |
And like to witches foul that bare | S |
Their withered arms and bend and cast | V |
Dread curses on the sleeping lands | E |
In awful legends of the past | V |
Red gums with outstretched bloody hands | E |
Shook maledictions in the air | S |
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Fear was around me everywhere | S |
The wrinkled foreheads of the rocks | E |
Frowned on me and methought I saw | E |
Deep down in dismal gulfs of awe | W |
Where gray death adders have their lair | S |
With the fiend bat the flying fox | E |
And dim sun rays down groping far | X |
Pale as a dead man's fingers are | X |
The grisly image of Decay | F |
That at the root of Life doth gnaw | E |
Sitting alone upon a throne | Y |
Of rotting skull and bleaching bone | Y |
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There is an end to all our griefs | E |
Little the red worm of the grave | Z |
Will vex us when our days are done | A2 |
So changed my thought up gazing then | N |
On gray piled stones that seemed the cairns | E |
Of dead and long forgotten chiefs | E |
The men of old the poor wild men | N |
Who under dim lights fought a brave | Z |
Sad fight of Life where hope was none | A2 |
In the vague voiceless far off years | E |
It changed again to present pain | B2 |
And I saw Sorrow everywhere | S |
In blackened trees and rust red ferns | E |
Blasted by bush fires and the sun | A2 |
And by the salt flood salt as tears | E |
Where the wild apple trees hung low | C2 |
And evermore stooped down to stare | S |
At their drowned shadows in the wave | Z |
Wringing their knotted hands of woe | C2 |
And the dark swamp oaks row on row | C2 |
Lined either bank a sombre train | B2 |
Of mourners with down streaming hair | S |
Victor James Daley
(1)
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