The Wanderings Of Oisin: Book Ii Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIJK LLMMNNIIA OOPPQQRRROSSTTUUVVGG WUXXYYZWWZHHTA2A2THH B2TT MMMMTTTMM T TTTTMMA2A2 T C2C2 TTTD2D2TTTT E2E2GGTTF2F2G2G2TH2 TI2I2TTJ2J2G2G2WWTTD 2D2DDTTG2G2MMTM TDDTTTTMMMMK2K2MME2E 2G2G2DDL2L2M2M2PPTTT TTTMMGGDDTTN2N2TTO2O 2U TTNow man of croziers shadows called our names | A |
And then away away like whirling flames | A |
And now fled by mist covered without sound | B |
The youth and lady and the deer and hound | B |
'Gaze no more on the phantoms ' Niamh said | C |
And kissed my eyes and swaying her bright head | C |
And her bright body sang of faery and man | D |
Before God was or my old line began | D |
Wars shadowy vast exultant faeries of old | E |
Who wedded men with rings of Druid gold | E |
And how those lovers never turn their eyes | F |
Upon the life that fades and flickers and dies | F |
Yet love and kiss on dim shores far away | G |
Rolled round with music of the sighing spray | G |
Yet sang no more as when like a brown bee | H |
That has drunk full she crossed the misty sea | H |
With me in her white arms a hundred years | I |
Before this day for now the fall of tears | J |
Troubled her song | K |
- | |
I do not know if days | L |
Or hours passed by yet hold the morning rays | L |
Shone many times among the glimmering flowers | M |
Woven into her hair before dark towers | M |
Rose in the darkness and the white surf gleamed | N |
About them and the horse of Faery screamed | N |
And shivered knowing the Isle of Many Fears | I |
Nor ceased until white Niamh stroked his ears | I |
And named him by sweet names | A |
- | |
A foaming tide | O |
Whitened afar with surge fan formed and wide | O |
Burst from a great door matred by many a blow | P |
From mace and sword and pole axe long ago | P |
When gods and giants warred We rode between | Q |
The seaweed covered pillars and the green | Q |
And surging phosphorus alone gave light | R |
On our dark pathway till a countless flight | R |
Of moonlit steps glimmered and left and right | R |
Dark statues glimmered over the pale tide | O |
Upon dark thrones Between the lids of one | S |
The imaged meteors had flashed and run | S |
And had disported in the stilly jet | T |
And the fixed stars had dawned and shone and set | T |
Since God made Time and Death and Sleep the other | U |
Stretched his long arm to where a misty smother | U |
The stream churned churned and churned his lips apart | V |
As though he told his never slumbering heart | V |
Of every foamdrop on its misty way | G |
Tying the horse to his vast foot that lay | G |
Half in the unvesselled sea we climbed the stair | W |
And climbed so long I thought the last steps were | U |
Hung from the morning star when these mild words | X |
Fanned the delighted air like wings of birds | X |
'My brothers spring out of their beds at morn | Y |
A murmur like young partridge with loud horn | Y |
They chase the noontide deer | Z |
And when the dew drowned stars hang in the air | W |
Look to long fishing lines or point and pare | W |
An ashen hunting spear | Z |
O sigh O fluttering sigh be kind to me | H |
Flutter along the froth lips of the sea | H |
And shores the froth lips wet | T |
And stay a little while and bid them weep | A2 |
Ah touch their blue veined eyelids if they sleep | A2 |
And shake their coverlet | T |
When you have told how I weep endlessly | H |
Flutter along the froth lips of the sea | H |
And home to me again | B2 |
And in the shadow of my hair lie hid | T |
And tell me that you found a man unbid | T |
The saddest of all men ' | - |
- | |
A lady with soft eyes like funeral tapers | M |
And face that seemed wrought out of moonlit vapours | M |
And a sad mouth that fear made tremulous | M |
As any ruddy moth looked down on us | M |
And she with a wave rusted chain was tied | T |
To two old eagles full of ancient pride | T |
That with dim eyeballs stood on either side | T |
Few feathers were on their dishevelled wings | M |
For their dim minds were with the ancient things | M |
- | |
'I bring deliverance ' pearl pale Niamh said | T |
- | |
'Neither the living nor the unlabouring dead | T |
Nor the high gods who never lived may fight | T |
My enemy and hope demons for fright | T |
Jabber and scream about him in the night | T |
For he is strong and crafty as the seas | M |
That sprang under the Seven Hazel Trees | M |
And I must needs endure and hate and weep | A2 |
Until the gods and demons drop asleep | A2 |
Hearing Acdh touch thc mournful strings of gold ' | - |
- | |
'Is he so dreadful ' | - |
'Be not over bold | T |
But fly while still you may ' | - |
And thereon I | C2 |
'This demon shall be battered till he die | C2 |
And his loose bulk be thrown in the loud tide ' | - |
'Flee from him ' pearl pale Niamh weeping cried | T |
'For all men flee the demons' but moved not | T |
My angry king remembering soul one jot | T |
There was no mightier soul of Heber's line | D2 |
Now it is old and mouse like For a sign | D2 |
I burst the chain still earless neNeless blind | T |
Wrapped in the things of the unhuman mind | T |
In some dim memory or ancient mood | T |
Still earless netveless blind the eagles stood | T |
- | |
And then we climbed the stair to a high door | E2 |
A hundred horsemen on the basalt floor | E2 |
Beneath had paced content we held our way | G |
And stood within clothed in a misty ray | G |
I saw a foam white seagull drift and float | T |
Under the roof and with a straining throat | T |
Shouted and hailed him he hung there a star | F2 |
For no man's cry shall ever mount so far | F2 |
Not even your God could have thrown down that hall | G2 |
Stabling His unloosed lightnings in their stall | G2 |
He had sat down and sighed with cumbered heart | T |
As though His hour were come | H2 |
- | |
We sought the part | T |
That was most distant from the door green slime | I2 |
Made the way slippery and time on time | I2 |
Showed prints of sea born scales while down through it | T |
The captive's journeys to and fro were writ | T |
Like a small river and where feet touched came | J2 |
A momentary gleam of phosphorus flame | J2 |
Under the deepest shadows of the hall | G2 |
That woman found a ring hung on the wall | G2 |
And in the ring a torch and with its flare | W |
Making a world about her in the air | W |
Passed under the dim doorway out of sight | T |
And came again holding a second light | T |
Burning between her fingers and in mine | D2 |
Laid it and sighed I held a sword whose shine | D2 |
No centuries could dim and a word ran | D |
Thereon in Ogham letters 'Manannan' | D |
That sea god's name who in a deep content | T |
Sprang dripping and with captive demons sent | T |
Out of the sevenfold seas built the dark hall | G2 |
Rooted in foam and clouds and cried to all | G2 |
The mightier masters of a mightier race | M |
And at his cry there came no milk pale face | M |
Under a crown of thorns and dark with blood | T |
But only exultant faces | M |
- | |
Niamh stood | T |
With bowed head trembling when the white blade shone | D |
But she whose hours of tenderness were gone | D |
Had neither hope nor fear I bade them hide | T |
Under the shadowS till the tumults died | T |
Of the loud crashing and earth shaking fight | T |
Lest they should look upon some dreadful sight | T |
And thrust the torch between the slimy flags | M |
A dome made out of endless carven jags | M |
Where shadowy face flowed into shadowy face | M |
Looked down on me and in the self same place | M |
I waited hour by hour and the high dome | K2 |
Windowless pillarless multitudinous home | K2 |
Of faces waited and the leisured gaze | M |
Was loaded with the memory of days | M |
Buried and mighty When through the great door | E2 |
The dawn came in and glimmered on the floor | E2 |
With a pale light I journeyed round the hall | G2 |
And found a door deep sunken in the wall | G2 |
The least of doors beyond on a dim plain | D |
A little mnnel made a bubbling strain | D |
And on the runnel's stony and bare edge | L2 |
A dusky demon dry as a withered sedge | L2 |
Swayed crooning to himself an unknown tongue | M2 |
In a sad revelry he sang and swung | M2 |
Bacchant and mournful passing to and fro | P |
His hand along the runnel's side as though | P |
The flowers still grew there far on the sea's waste | T |
Shaking and waving vapour vapour chased | T |
While high frail cloudlets fed with a green light | T |
Like drifts of leaves immovable and bright | T |
Hung in the passionate dawn He slowly turned | T |
A demon's leisure eyes first white now burned | T |
Like wings of kingfishers and he arose | M |
Barking We trampled up and down with blows | M |
Of sword and brazen battle axe while day | G |
Gave to high noon and noon to night gave way | G |
And when he knew the sword of Manannan | D |
Amid the shades of night he changed and ran | D |
Through many shapes I lunged at the smooth throat | T |
Of a great eel it changed and I but smote | T |
A fir tree roaring in its leafless top | N2 |
And thereupon I drew the livid chop | N2 |
Of a drowned dripping body to my breast | T |
Horror from horror grew but when the west | T |
Had surged up in a plumy fire I drave | O2 |
Through heart and spine and cast him in the wave | O2 |
Lest Niamh shudder | U |
- | |
Full of hope and dread | T |
Those two came carrying wine and | T |
William Butler Yeats
(1)
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