Death In A Ball-room Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABB CDCDD EFEGF HCHCC CCCCC IJKJJ LKLIK CCCMC CCCCC CNCNN HIOPP CCCCC QJQRJ SLTLL FCFCC HCOCC CUCVW XYXZZ MA2MB2B2Oh many many thus have died alas | A |
Children poor things The grave will have its prey | B |
Some flowers must still be mown down with the grass | A |
And in life's wild quadrille the dancers gay | B |
Must trample here and there a weak one in their way | B |
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Yes thus it is After the day the night | C |
A night that has no waking Who shall tell | D |
A joyous crowd sits down to feast aright | C |
But always some one guest where all seemed well | D |
Gets up and leaves his chair and hears the passing bell | D |
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I have seen many go cheeks rosy pink | E |
And blue eyes wide as if entranced with song | F |
And forms so frail it seemed that on death's brink | E |
A bird had bent the branch to which it clung | G |
So frail the body was the tyrant soul so strong | F |
- | |
One knew I who in her delirium | H |
Uttered a name which troubled all around | C |
And then like a lost chaunt for ever dumb | H |
She left us smiling In her breast we found | C |
Some faded violets hid by a blue ribbon bound | C |
- | |
Poor flowers poor souls and only born to die | C |
Fair fledglings torn untimely from their nest | C |
Halcyons our Earth had borrowed from the sky | C |
For one short Spring and then as if confessed | C |
Unworthy that high charge given back to Heaven's breast | C |
- | |
Such have I known and such alas was one | I |
Whom now I picture sadly here Her eyes | J |
Had gleams where April's fitful beauty shone | K |
I know not why she heaved so many sighs | J |
She was sixteen perhaps and cared not to be wise | J |
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Yet think not it was love that was her death | L |
Love had no song for her of any tone | K |
Her heart had never beat too fast for brerth | L |
Though all men called her pretty there was none | I |
To whisper that soft fable in her ear alone | K |
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No It was dancing dancing which she loved | C |
Beyond all else that caused her thus to die | C |
Her very dust methinks by night is moved | C |
When the pale moon beneath heaven's canopy | M |
Holds revel with the clouds in the quick circling sky | C |
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Balls she adored Each evening that she danced | C |
She thought three days and dreamed three nights of it | C |
And visions brave where goblin partners pranced | C |
Beset her pillows till she could not sit | C |
Still in her bed but she must rise and dance a bit | C |
- | |
By night and day her fancy framed the sight | C |
Of scarves and flowers and ribbons bright as noon | N |
And jewels gleaming with unearthly light | C |
And skirts of gossamer in wild festoon | N |
And lace like spiders' webs of spiders in the moon | N |
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When the ball opened she was first to come | H |
With her proud father honest gentleman | I |
Like a little mouse she ran about the room | O |
Oh how she frowned and rattled with her fan | P |
And beat her pretty foot until the dance began | P |
- | |
It did us good to see her dance Her feet | C |
Twinkled like stars in a dark firmament | C |
They moved so fast they made our pulses beat | C |
Lest those frail laces should be overspent | C |
And the white satin shoes be whirled away or rent | C |
- | |
She was all movement laughter and mad joy | Q |
Child How we followed her with our sad eyes | J |
Forgetful of the fever and annoy | Q |
And rush and dust and nameless miseries | R |
The punishment of souls too proud or sad or wise | J |
- | |
But she borne off upon her pleasure's wing | S |
Whirled round and round She never stopped for breath | L |
She seemed to drink the fiddler's fiddling in | T |
She seemed to smell the flowers of every wreath | L |
To dance with every step the dancers danced beneath | L |
- | |
'Twas joy to her to leap and bound along | F |
To feel as though she had a thousand feet | C |
To grow so giddy in the turning throng | F |
She knew not where she was Her heart so beat | C |
She could not see the chairs to find herself a seat | C |
- | |
Alas alas that ever morn should come | H |
On such sweet nights Alas that she must stand | C |
Those hours of woe in the chill waiting room | O |
Oh often ere the coach was at command | C |
The dawn had touched her shoulders with its naked hand | C |
- | |
'Tis ever a sad waking the next day | C |
No laughter now but only a dull cough | U |
The crumpled dresses have been put away | C |
Pleasure is dead and there stands Pleasure's scoff | V |
Fever with cheeks all red and tongue all white and rough | W |
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She died at sixteen happy loved by all | X |
Died as she left off dancing All of us | Y |
Wore mourning long in token of that ball | X |
She died upon the threshold of the house | Z |
In her white robe and wreath and sable lined burnous | Z |
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Death took her thus that she might ever be | M |
Dressed for new dancing When she wakes again | A2 |
She shall be ready for Eternity | M |
And if in Heaven such raptures are not vain | B2 |
Shall tread fair measures still to seraph angels' strain | B2 |
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
(1)
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