Sailing Ships Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDEFFGG HHIIJKLLMMNNOO PPQQCCRROOOO CCOOSSNNOSOOCCOOO TTUUOOOCVWPPOOCC

Lying on Downs above the wrinkling bayA
I with the kestrels shared the cleanly dayA
The candid day wind shaven brindled turfB
Tall cliffs and long sea line of marbled surfB
From Cornish Lizard to the Kentish NoreC
Lipping the bulwarks of the English shoreC
While many a lovely ship below sailed byD
On unknown errand kempt and leisurelyE
And after each oh after each my heartF
Fled forth as watching from the Downs apartF
I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wideG
That might befall their beauty and their prideG
-
Shared first with them the bless d void reposeH
Of oily days at sea when only roseH
The porpoise's slow wheel to break the sheenI
Of satin water indolently greenI
When for'ard the crew caps tilted over eyesJ
Lay heaped on deck slept mumbled smoked threw diceK
The sleepy summer days the summer nightsL
The coast pricked out with rings of harbour lightsL
The motionless nights the vaulted nights of JuneM
When high in the cordage drifts the entangled moonM
And blocks go knocking and the sheets go slappingN
And lazy swells against the sides come lappingN
And summer mornings off red Devon rocksO
Faint inland bells at dawn and crowing cocksO
-
Shared swifter days when headlands into kenP
Trod grandly threatened and were lost againP
Old fangs along the battlemented coastQ
And followed still my ship when winds were mostQ
Night purified and lying steeply overC
She fled the wind as flees a girl her loverC
Quickened by that pursuit for which she frettedR
Her temper by the contest proved and whettedR
Wild stars swept overhead her lofty sparsO
Reared to a ragged heaven sown with starsO
As leaping out from narrow English easeO
She faced the roll of long Atlantic seasO
-
Her captain then was I I was her crewC
The mind that laid her course the wake she drewC
The waves that rose against her bows the galesO
Nay I was more I was her very sailsO
Rounded before the wind her eager keelS
Her straining mast heads her responsive wheelS
Her pennon stiffened like a swallow's wingN
Yes I was all her slope and speed and swingN
Whether by yellow lemons and blue seaO
She dawdled through the isles off ThessalyS
Or saw the palms like sheaves of scimitarsO
On desert's verge below the sunset barsO
Or passed the girdle of the planet whereC
The Southern Cross looks over to the BearC
And strayed cool Northerner beneath strange skiesO
Flouting the lure of tropic estuariesO
Down that long coast and saw Magellan's Clouds ariseO
-
And some that beat up Channel homeward boundT
I watched and wondered what they might have foundT
What alien ports enriched their teeming holdU
With crates of fruit or bars of unwrought goldU
And thought how London clerks with paper clipsO
Had filed the bills of lading of those shipsO
Clerks that had never seen the embattled seaO
But wrote down jettison and barratryC
Perils Adventures and the Act of GodV
Having no vision of such wrath flung broadW
Wrote down with weary and accustomed penP
The classic dangers of sea faring menP
And wrote 'Restraint of Princes ' and 'the ActsO
Of the King's Enemies ' as vacant factsO
Blind to the ambushed seas the encircling roarC
Of angry nations foaming into warC

Victoria Mary Sackville-west



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