Griselda: A Society Novel In Verse - Chapter I Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDDDEEFEGHIIJK LLDDMN BBOPQQDDDD RRDDDDSSLLTTF FDDAAUV BDLLWXYYDDZZOA2 DDB2B2OC2D2D2E2E2LLF 2F2G2G2DDLLH2H2DDA2A 2DDDDDDDDI2I2DDDDC2A 2 IXDDDDH2H2YJ2H2H2DDH 2H2DDDDK2K2L2M2DDDDF 2F2M2EDDK2K2 DDDDH2H2DDDDDD N2N2QQDDO2O2LQP2P2OA 2H2H2DDDDDDQ2Q2H2H2D BAn idle story with an idle moral | A |
Why do I tell it at the risk of quarrel | A |
With nobler themes The world alas is so | B |
And who would gather truth must bend him low | B |
Nor fear to soil his knees with graveyard ground | C |
If haply there some flower of truth be found | C |
For human nature is an earthy fruit | D |
Mired at the stem and fleshy at the root | D |
And thrives with folly's mixon best o'erlaid | D |
Nor less divinely so when all is said | D |
Brave lives are lived and worthy deeds are done | E |
Each virtuous day 'neath the all pitying sun | E |
But these are not the most perhaps not even | F |
The surest road to our soul's modern Heaven | E |
The best of us are creatures of God's chance | G |
Call it His grace which works deliverance | H |
The rest mere pendulums 'twixt good and ill | I |
Like soldiers marking time while standing still | I |
'Tis all their strategy who have lost faith | J |
In things Divine beyond Man's life and death | K |
Pleasure and pain Of Heaven what know we | L |
Save as unfit for angels' company | L |
Say rather Hell's We cling to sins confessed | D |
And say our prayers still hoping for the best | D |
We fear old age and ugliness and pain | M |
And love our lives nor look to live again | N |
- | |
I do but parable the crowd I know | B |
The human cattle grazing as they go | B |
Unheedful of the heavens Here and there | O |
Some prouder may be or less hungry steer | P |
Lifting his face an instant to the sky | Q |
And left behind as the bent herd goes by | Q |
Or stung to a short madness tossing wild | D |
His horns aloft and charging the gay field | D |
Till the fence stops him and he vanquished too | D |
Turns to his browsing lost his Waterloo | D |
- | |
The moral of my tale I leave to others | R |
More bold who point the finger at their brothers | R |
And surer know than I which way is best | D |
To virtue's goal where all of us find rest | D |
Whether in stern denial of things sweet | D |
Or yielding timely lest life lose its feet | D |
And fall the further A plain tale is mine | S |
Of naked fact unconscious of design | S |
Told of the world in this last century | L |
Of Man's not God's disgrace the XIXth We | L |
Have made it all a little as it is | T |
In our own images and likenesses | T |
And need the more forgiveness for our sin | F |
- | |
Therefore my Muse impatient to begin | F |
I bid thee fearless forward on thy road | D |
Steer thou thy honest course 'twixt bad and good | D |
Know this in art that thing alone is evil | A |
Which shuns the one plain word that shames the Devil | A |
Tell truth without preamble or excuse | U |
And all shall be forgiven thee all my Muse | V |
- | |
In London then not many years ago | B |
There lived a lady of high fashion who | D |
For her friends' sake if any still there be | L |
Who hold her virtues green in memory | L |
Shall not be further named in this true tale | W |
Than as Griselda or the Lady L | X |
Such if I err not was the second name | Y |
Her parents gave when to the font she came | Y |
And such the initial letter bravely set | D |
On her coach door beneath the coronet | D |
Which bore her and her fortunes bore alas | Z |
For as in this sad world all things must pass | Z |
However great and nobly framed and fair | O |
Griselda too is of the things that were | A2 |
- | |
But while she lived Griselda had no need | D |
Of the world's pity She was proudly bred | D |
And proudly nurtured Plenty her full horn | B2 |
Had fairly emptied out when she was born | B2 |
And dowered her with all bounties She was fair | O |
As only children of the noblest are | C2 |
And brave and strong and opulent of health | D2 |
Which made her take full pleasure of her wealth | D2 |
She had a pitying scorn of little souls | E2 |
And little bodies levying heavy tolls | E2 |
On all the world which was less strong than she | L |
She used her natural strength most naturally | L |
And yet with due discretion so that all | F2 |
Stood equally in bondage to her thrall | F2 |
She was of that high godlike shape and size | G2 |
Which has authority in all men's eyes | G2 |
Her hair was brown her colour white and red | D |
Nor idly moved to blush She held her head | D |
Straight with her back Her body from the knee | L |
Tall and clean shaped like some well nurtured tree | L |
Rose finely finished to the finger tips | H2 |
She had a noble carriage of the hips | H2 |
And that proportionate waist which only art | D |
Dares to divine harmonious part with part | D |
But of this more anon or rather never | A2 |
All that the world could vaunt for its endeavour | A2 |
Was the fair promise of her ankles set | D |
Upon a pair of small high instepped feet | D |
In whose behalf though modestly God wot | D |
As any nun she raised her petticoat | D |
One little inch more high than reason meet | D |
Was for one crossing a well besomed street | D |
This was the only tribute she allowed | D |
To human folly and the envious crowd | D |
Nor for my part would I be found her judge | I2 |
For her one weakness nor appear to grudge | I2 |
What in myself as surely in the rest | D |
Bred strange sweet fancies such as feet suggest | D |
We owe her all too much This point apart | D |
Griselda modesty's own counterpart | D |
Moved in the sphere of folly like a star | C2 |
Aloof and bright and most particular | A2 |
- | |
By girlish choice and whim of her first will | I |
She had espoused the amiable Lord L | X |
A worthy nobleman in high repute | D |
For wealth and virtue and her kin to boot | D |
A silent man well mannered and well dressed | D |
Courteous deliberate kind sublimely blessed | D |
With fortune's favours but without pretence | H2 |
Whom manners almost made a man of sense | H2 |
In early life he had aspired to fame | Y |
In the world of letters by the stratagem | J2 |
Of a new issue from his private press | H2 |
Of classic bards in senatorial dress | H2 |
In usum Marchionis '' He had spent | D |
Much of his youth upon the Continent | D |
Purchasing marbles bronzes pictures gems | H2 |
In every town from Tiber unto Thames | H2 |
And gaining store of curious knowledge too | D |
On divers subjects that the world least knew | D |
Knowledge uncatalogued and overlaid | D |
With dust and lumber somewhere in his head | D |
A slumberous man in whom the lamp of life | K2 |
Had never quite been lighted for the strife | K2 |
And turmoil of the world but flickered down | L2 |
In an uncertain twilight of its own | M2 |
With an occasional flash that only made | D |
A deeper shadow for its world of shade | D |
When he returned to England all admired | D |
The taste of his collections and inquired | D |
To whose fair fortunate head the lot should fall | F2 |
To wear these gems and jewels after all | F2 |
But years went by and still unclaimed they shone | M2 |
A snare and stumbling block to more than one | E |
Till in his fiftieth year 'twas vaguely said | D |
Lord L already had too long delayed | D |
Be it as it may he abdicated life | K2 |
The day he took Griselda to his wife | K2 |
- | |
And then Griselda loved him All agreed | D |
The world's chief sponsors for its social creed | D |
That whether poor Lord L was or was not | D |
The very fool some said and idiot | D |
Or whether under cloak of dulness crass | H2 |
He veiled that sense best suited to his case | H2 |
Sparing his wit as housewives spare their light | D |
For curtain eloquence and dead of night | D |
And spite of whispered tales obscurely spread | D |
Doubting the fortunes of her nuptial bed | D |
Here at this word all sides agreed to rest | D |
Griselda did her duty with the best | D |
- | |
Yet poor Griselda When in lusty youth | N2 |
A love sick boy I stood unformed uncouth | N2 |
And watched with sad and ever jealous eye | Q |
The vision of your beauty passing by | Q |
Why was it that that brow inviolate | D |
That virginal courage yet unscared by fate | D |
That look the immortal queen and huntress wore | O2 |
To frightened shepherds' eyes in days of yore | O2 |
Consoled me thus and soothed unconsciously | L |
And stilled my jealous fears I knew not why | Q |
How shall I tell the secret of your soul | P2 |
Which then I blindly guessed or how cajole | P2 |
My boyhood's ancient folly to declare | O |
Now in my wisdom the dear maid you were | A2 |
Though such the truth Griselda's early days | H2 |
Of married life were not that fitful maze | H2 |
Of tears and laughter which betoken aught | D |
Changed or exchanged of pain with pleasure bought | D |
Of maiden freedom conquered and subdued | D |
Of hopes new born and fears of womanhood | D |
Those who then saw Griselda saw a child | D |
Well pleased and happy thoughtlessly beguiled | D |
By every simplest pleasure of her age | Q2 |
Gay as a bird just issued from its cage | Q2 |
When every flower is sweet No eye could trace | H2 |
Doubt or disquiet written on her face | H2 |
Where none there was And if the truth be told | D |
Griselda grieved not that Lord L was o | B |
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
(1)
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