Sailing Ships Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AA BBCCDDEFGGHH IIJJKLMMNNOOPP QQRRDDSSPPPP DDPPTTOOPTPPDDPPP UUVVPPPDWXQQPPDD

A
A
-
-
-
-
-
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Lying on Downs above the wrinkling bayB
I with the kestrels shared the cleanly dayB
The candid day wind shaven brindled turfC
Tall cliffs and long sea line of marbled surfC
From Cornish Lizard to the Kentish NoreD
Lipping the bulwarks of the English shoreD
While many a lovely ship below sailed byE
On unknown errand kempt and leisurelyF
And after each oh after each my heartG
Fled forth as watching from the Downs apartG
I shared with ships good joys and fortunes wideH
That might befall their beauty and their prideH
-
Shared first with them the blessed void reposeI
Of oily days at sea when only roseI
The porpoise's slow wheel to break the sheenJ
Of satin water indolently greenJ
When for'ard the crew caps tilted over eyesK
Lay heaped on deck slept mumbled smoked threw diceL
The sleepy summer days the summer nightsM
The coast pricked out with rings of harbour lightsM
The motionless nights the vaulted nights of JuneN
When high in the cordage drifts the entangled moonN
And blocks go knocking and the sheets go slappingO
And lazy swells against the sides come lappingO
And summer mornings off red Devon rocksP
Faint inland bells at dawn and crowing cocksP
-
Shared swifter days when headlands into kenQ
Trod grandly threatened and were lost againQ
Old fangs along the battlemented coastR
And followed still my ship when winds were mostR
Night purified and lying steeply overD
She fled the wind as flees a girl her loverD
Quickened by that pursuit for which she frettedS
Her temper by the contest proved and whettedS
Wild stars swept overhead her lofty sparsP
Reared to a ragged heaven sown with starsP
As leaping out from narrow English easeP
She faced the roll of long Atlantic seasP
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Her captain then was I I was her crewD
The mind that laid her course the wake she drewD
The waves that rose against her bows the galesP
Nay I was more I was her very sailsP
Rounded before the wind her eager keelT
Her straining mast heads her responsive wheelT
Her pennon stiffened like a swallow's wingO
Yes I was all her slope and speed and swingO
Whether by yellow lemons and blue seaP
She dawdled through the isles off ThessalyT
Or saw the palms like sheaves of scimitarsP
On desert's verge below the sunset barsP
Or passed the girdle of the planet whereD
The Southern Cross looks over to the BearD
And strayed cool Northerner beneath strange skiesP
Flouting the lure of tropic estuariesP
Down that long coast and saw Magellan's Clouds ariseP
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And some that beat up Channel homeward boundU
I watched and wondered what they might have foundU
What alien ports enriched their teeming holdV
With crates of fruit or bars of unwrought goldV
And thought how London clerks with paper clipsP
Had filed the bills of lading of those shipsP
Clerks that had never seen the embattled seaP
But wrote down jettison and barratryD
Perils Adventures and the Act of GodW
Having no vision of such wrath flung broadX
Wrote down with weary and accustomed penQ
The classic dangers of sea faring menQ
And wrote 'Restraint of Princes ' and 'the ActsP
Of the King's Enemies ' as vacant factsP
Blind to the ambushed seas the encircling roarD
Of angry nations foaming into warD

Victoria Sackville-west



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