The Knight's Epitaph Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGAHIJKALMNOP QLRSTUVWXQYZTA2B2AAC 2D2E2F2AZG2H2ZAI2 J2K2L2ACM2AThis is the church which Pisa great and free | A |
Reared to St Catharine How the time stained walls | B |
That earthquakes shook not from their poise appear | C |
To shiver in the deep and voluble tones | D |
Rolled from the organ Underneath my feet | E |
There lies the lid of a sepulchral vault | F |
The image of an armed knight is graven | G |
Upon it clad in perfect panoply | A |
Cuishes and greaves and cuirass with barred helm | H |
Gauntleted hand and sword and blazoned shield | I |
Around in Gothic characters worn dim | J |
By feet of worshippers are traced his name | K |
And birth and death and words of eulogy | A |
Why should I pore upon them This old tomb | L |
This effigy the strange disused form | M |
Of this inscription eloquently show | N |
His history Let me clothe in fitting words | O |
The thoughts they breathe and frame his epitaph | P |
- | |
'He whose forgotten dust for centuries | Q |
Has lain beneath this stone was one in whom | L |
Adventure and endurance and emprise | R |
Exalted the mind's faculties and strung | S |
The body's sinews Brave he was in fight | T |
Courteous in banquet scornful of repose | U |
And bountiful and cruel and devout | V |
And quick to draw the sword in private feud | W |
He pushed his quarrels to the death yet prayed | X |
The saints as fervently on bended knees | Q |
As ever shaven cenobite He loved | Y |
As fiercely as he fought He would have borne | Z |
The maid that pleased him from her bower by night | T |
To his hill castle as the eagle bears | A2 |
His victim from the fold and rolled the rocks | B2 |
On his pursuers He aspired to see | A |
His native Pisa queen and arbitress | A |
Of cities earnestly for her he raised | C2 |
His voice in council and affronted death | D2 |
In battle field and climbed the galley's deck | E2 |
And brought the captured flag of Genoa back | F2 |
Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quay | A |
The glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen | Z |
He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke | G2 |
But would have joined the exiles that withdrew | H2 |
For ever when the Florentine broke in | Z |
The gates of Pisa and bore off the bolts | A |
For trophies but he died before that day | I2 |
- | |
'He lived the impersonation of an age | J2 |
That never shall return His soul of fire | K2 |
Was kindled by the breath of the rude time | L2 |
He lived in Now a gentler race succeeds | A |
Shuddering at blood the effeminate cavalier | C |
Turning his eyes from the reproachful past | M2 |
And from the hopeless future gives to ease | A |
And love and music his inglorious life ' | - |
William Cullen Bryant
(1)
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