Arabian Nights' Entertainments - To Elizabeth Robins Pennell Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFFFGFFFHIJK LFMNFFFAOJJPJQFFDRJF FFFCSJTJSSUFFF VJJDSFFJWJFJJSSXYJFZ TA2B2JO FXTFTJFFFJZTTFTJFFTC 2TFJJFB2JFJTFJFJD2JF SOFFZE2FJ SJF2 B2FBG2H2SFFI2ZOTFSJJ TSJ2FB2SK2FB2FS BB2JSHJJSJFTJFJC2JJT FB2JJ2ZSSJJJFTJSJJJF JFSTSFJJJSB2 JJL2M2JTJFFHJJFJ2TJF FSB2TFTJJJFTFB2TN2JF FO2P2JSSB2JSFSI2FFFS SC2 FC2SFQ2JJTJJFTTFB2FC 2C2SJR2JB2F2MFFB2FSJ TFJTFFFS2FC2C2RCJSJC 2TJB2TFFFTFC2FTB2FC2 FTC2RC2Q2FTFFJ JFJFFJPFFFJFFJFFJFC2 SL2SFTFJPFJJSFFFJB2T SFFFFFFFJST2JJJCTB2U 2FFK2

'O mes cheres Mille et Une Nuits ' Fantasio	A
	-
Once on a time	B
There was a little boy a master mage	C
By virtue of a Book	D
Of magic O so magical it filled	E
His life with visionary pomps	F
Processional And Powers	F
Passed with him where he passed And Thrones	F
And Dominations glaived and plumed and mailed	G
Thronged in the criss cross streets	F
The palaces pell mell with playing fields	F
Domes cloisters dungeons caverns tents arcades	F
Of the unseen silent City in his soul	H
Pavilioned jealously and hid	I
As in the dusk profound	J
Green stillnesses of some enchanted mere	K
	-
I shut mine eyes And lo	L
A flickering snatch of memory that floats	F
Upon the face of a pool of darkness five	M
And thirty dead years deep	N
Antic in girlish broideries	F
And skirts and silly shoes with straps	F
And a broad ribanded leghorn he walks	F
Plain in the shadow of a church	A
St Michael's in whose brazen call	O
To curfew his first wails of wrath were whelmed	J
Sedate for all his haste	J
To be at home and nestled in his arm	P
Inciting still to quiet and solitude	J
Boarded in sober drab	Q
With small square agitating cuts	F
Let in a top of the double columned close	F
Quakerlike print a Book	D
What but that blessed brief	R
Of what is gallantest and best	J
In all the full shelved Libraries of Romance	F
The Book of rocs	F
Sandalwood ivory turbans ambergris	F
Cream tarts and lettered apes and calendars	F
And ghouls and genies O so huge	C
They might have overed the tall Minster Tower	S
Hands down as schoolboys take a post	J
In truth the Book of Camaralzaman	T
Schemselnihar and Sindbad Scheherezade	J
The peerless Bedreddin Badroulbadour	S
Cairo and Serendib and Candahar	S
And Caspian and the dim terrific bulk	U
Ice ribbed fiend visited isled in spells and storms	F
Of Kaf That centre of miracles	F
The sole unparalleled Arabian Nights	F
	-
Old friends I had a many kindly and grim	V
Familiars cronies quaint	J
And goblin Never a Wood but housed	J
Some morrice of dainty dapperlings No Brook	D
But had his nunnery	S
Of green haired silvry curving sprites	F
To cabin in his grots and pace	F
His lilied margents Every lone Hillside	J
Might open upon Elf Land Every Stalk	W
That curled about a Bean stick was of the breed	J
Of that live ladder by whose delicate rungs	F
You climbed beyond the clouds and found	J
The Farm House where the Ogre gorged	J
And drowsy from his great oak chair	S
Among the flitches and pewters at the fire	S
Called for his Faery Harp And in it flew	X
And perching on the kitchen table sang	Y
Jocund and jubilant with a sound	J
Of those gay golden vowered madrigals	F
The shy thrush at mid May	Z
Flutes from wet orchards flushed with the triumphing dawn	T
Or blackbirds rioting as they listened still	A2
In old world woodlands rapt with an old world spring	B2
For Pan's own whistle savage and rich and lewd	J
And mocked him call for call	O
	-
I could not pass	F
The half door where the cobbler sat in view	X
Nor figure me the wizen Leprechaun	T
In square cut faded reds and buckle shoes	F
Bent at his work in the hedge side and know	T
Just how he tapped his brogue and twitched	J
His wax end this and that way both with wrists	F
And elbows In the rich June fields	F
Where the ripe clover drew the bees	F
And the tall quakers trembled and the West Wind	J
Lolled his half holiday away	Z
Beside me lolling and lounging through my own	T
'Twas good to follow the Miller's Youngest Son	T
On his white horse along the leafy lanes	F
For at his stirrup linked and ran	T
Not cynical and trapesing as he loped	J
From wall to wall above the espaliers	F
But in the bravest tops	F
That market town a town of tops could show	T
Bold subtle adventurous his tail	C2
A banner flaunted in disdain	T
Of human stratagems and shifts	F
King over All the Catlands present and past	J
And future that moustached	J
Artificer of fortunes Puss in Boots	F
Or Bluebeard's Closet with its plenishing	B2
Of meat hooks sawdust blood	J
And wives that hung like fresh dressed carcases	F
Odd fangled most a butcher's part	J
A faery chamber hazily seen	T
And hazily figured on dark afternoons	F
And windy nights was visiting of the best	J
Then too the pelt of hoofs	F
Out in the roaring darkness told	J
Of Herne the Hunter in his antlered helm	D2
Galloping as with despatches from the Pit	J
Between his hell born Hounds	F
And Rip Van Winkle often I lurked to hear	S
Outside the long low timbered tarry wall	O
The mutter and rumble of the trolling bowls	F
Down the lean plank before they fluttered the pins	F
For listening I could help him play	Z
His wonderful game	E2
In those blue booming hills with Mariners	F
Refreshed from kegs not coopered in this our world	J
	-
But what were these so near	S
So neighbourly fancies to the spell that brought	J
The run of Ali Baba's Cave	F2
Just for the saying 'Open Sesame '	-
With gold to measure peck by peck	B2
In round brown wooden stoups	F
You borrowed at the chandler's Or one time	B
Made you Aladdin's friend at school	G2
Free of his Garden of Jewels Ring and Lamp	H2
In perfect trim Or Ladies fair	S
For all the embrowning scars in their white breasts	F
Went labouring under some dread ordinance	F
Which made them whip and bitterly cry the while	I2
Strange Curs that cried as they	Z
Till there was never a Black Bitch of all	O
Your consorting but might have gone	T
Spell driven miserably for crimes	F
Done in the pride of womanhood and desire	S
Or at the ghostliest altitudes of night	J
While you lay wondering and acold	J
Your sense was fearfully purged and soon	T
Queen Labe abominable and dear	S
Rose from your side opened the Box of Doom	J2
Scattered the yellow powder which I saw	F
Like sulphur at the Docks in bulk	B2
And muttered certain words you could not hear	S
And there a living stream	K2
The brook you bathed in with its weeds and flags	F
And cresses glittered and sang	B2
Out of the hearthrug over the nakedness	F
Fair scrubbed and decent of your bedroom floor	S
	-
I was how many a time	B
That Second Calendar Son of a King	B2
On whom 'twas vehemently enjoined	J
Pausing at one mysterious door	S
To pry no closer but content his soul	H
With his kind Forty Yet I could not rest	J
For idleness and ungovernable Fate	J
And the Black Horse which fed on sesame	S
That wonder working word	J
Vouchsafed his back to me and spread his vans	F
And soaring soaring on	T
From air to air came charging to the ground	J
Sheer like a lark from the midsummer clouds	F
And shaking me out of the saddle where I sprawled	J
Flicked at me with his tail	C2
And left me blinded miserable distraught	J
Even as I was in deed	J
When doctors came and odious things were done	T
On my poor tortured eyes	F
With lancets or some evil acid stung	B2
And wrung them like hot sand	J
And desperately from room to room	J2
Fumble I must my dark disconsolate way	Z
To get to Bagdad how I might But there	S
I met with Merry Ladies O you three	S
Safie Amine Zobeide when my heart	J
Forgets you all shall be forgot	J
And so we supped we and the rest	J
On wine and roasted lamb rose water dates	F
Almonds pistachios citrons And Haroun	T
Laughed out of his lordly beard	J
On Giaffar and Mesrour I knew the Three	S
For all their Mossoul habits And outside	J
The Tigris flowing swift	J
Like Severn bend for bend twinkled and gleamed	J
With broken and wavering shapes of stranger stars	F
The vast blue night	J
Was murmurous with peris' plumes	F
And the leathern wings of genies words of power	S
Were whispering and old fishermen	T
Casting their nets with prayer might draw to shore	S
Dead loveliness or a prodigy in scales	F
Worth in the Caliph's Kitchen pieces of gold	J
Or copper vessels stopped with lead	J
Wherein some Squire of Eblis watched and railed	J
In durance under potent charactry	S
Graven by the seal of Solomon the King	B2
	-
Then as the Book was glassed	J
In Life as in some olden mirror's quaint	J
Bewildering angles so would Life	L2
Flash light on light back on the Book and both	M2
Were changed Once in a house decayed	J
From better days harbouring an errant show	T
For all its stories of dry rot	J
Were filled with gruesome visitants in wax	F
Inhuman hushed ghastly with Painted Eyes	F
I wandered and no living soul	H
Was nearer than the pay box and I stared	J
Upon them staring staring Till at last	J
Three sets of rafters from the streets	F
I strayed upon a mildewed rat run room	J2
With the two Dancers horrible and obscene	T
Guarding the door and there in a bedroom set	J
Behind a fence of faded crimson cords	F
With an aspect of frills	F
And dimities and dishonoured privacy	S
That made you hanker and hesitate to look	B2
A Woman with her litter of Babes all slain	T
All in their nightgowns all with Painted Eyes	F
Staring still staring so that I turned and ran	T
As for my neck but in the street	J
Took breath The same it seemed	J
And yet not all the same I was to find	J
As I went up For afterwards	F
Whenas I went my round alone	T
All day alone in long stern silent streets	F
Where I might stretch my hand and take	B2
Whatever I would still there were Shapes of Stone	T
Motionless lifelike frightening for the Wrath	N2
Had smitten them but they watched	J
This by her melons and figs that by his rings	F
And chains and watches with the hideous gaze	F
The Painted Eyes insufferable	O2
Now of those grisly images and I	P2
Pursued my best beloved quest	J
Thrilled with a novel and delicious fear	S
So the night fell with never a lamplighter	S
And through the Palace of the King	B2
I groped among the echoes and I felt	J
That they were there	S
Dreadfully there the Painted staring Eyes	F
Hall after hall Till lo from far	S
A Voice And in a little while	I2
Two tapers burning And the Voice	F
Heard in the wondrous Word of God was whose	F
Whose but Zobeide's	F
The lady of my heart like me	S
A True Believer and like me	S
An outcast thousands of leagues beyond the pale	C2
	-
Or sailing to the Isles	F
Of Khaledan I spied one evenfall	C2
A black blotch in the sunset and it grew	S
Swiftly and grew Tearing their beards	F
The sailors wept and prayed but the grave ship	Q2
Deep laden with spiceries and pearls went mad	J
Wrenched the long tiller out of the steersman's hand	J
And turning broadside on	T
As the most iron would was haled and sucked	J
Nearer and nearer yet	J
And all awash with horrible lurching leaps	F
Rushed at that Portent casting a shadow now	T
That swallowed sea and sky and then	T
Anchors and nails and bolts	F
Flew screaming out of her and with clang on clang	B2
A noise of fifty stithies caught at the sides	F
Of the Magnetic Mountain and she lay	C2
A broken bundle of firewood strown piecemeal	C2
About the waters and her crew	S
Passed shrieking one by one and I was left	J
To drown All the long night I swam	R2
But in the morning O the smiling coast	J
Tufted with date trees meadowlike	B2
Skirted with shelving sands And a great wave	F2
Cast me ashore and I was saved alive	M
So giving thanks to God I dried my clothes	F
And faring inland in a desert place	F
I stumbled on an iron ring	B2
The fellow of fifty built into the Quays	F
When scenting a trap door	S
I dug and dug until my biggest blade	J
Stuck into wood And then	T
The flight of smooth hewn easy falling stairs	F
Sunk in the naked rock The cool clean vault	J
So neat with niche on niche it might have been	T
Our beer cellar but for the rows	F
Of brazen urns like monstrous chemist's jars	F
Full to the wide squat throats	F
With gold dust but a top	S2
A layer of pickled walnut looking things	F
I knew for olives And far O far away	C2
The Princess of China languished Far away	C2
Was marriage with a Vizier and a Chief	R
Of Eunuchs and the privilege	C
Of going out at night	J
To play unkenned majestical secure	S
Where the old brown friendly river shaped	J
Like Tigris shore for shore Haply a Ghoul	C2
Sat in the churchyard under a frightened moon	T
A thighbone in his fist and glared	J
At supper with a Lady she who took	B2
Her rice with tweezers grain by grain	T
Or you might stumble there by the iron gates	F
Of the Pump Room underneath the limes	F
Upon Bedreddin in his shirt and drawers	F
Just as the civil Genie laid him down	T
Or those red curtained panes	F
Whence a tame cornet tenored it throatily	C2
Of beer pots and spittoons and new long pipes	F
Might turn a caravansery's wherein	T
You found Noureddin Ali loftily drunk	B2
And that fair Persian bathed in tears	F
You'd not have given away	C2
For all the diamonds in the Vale Perilous	F
You had that dark and disleaved afternoon	T
Escaped on a roc's claw	C2
Disguised like Sindbad but in Christmas beef	R
And all the blissful while	C2
The schoolboy satchel at your hip	Q2
Was such a bulse of gems as should amaze	F
Grey whiskered chapmen drawn	T
From over Caspian yea the Chief Jewellers	F
Of Tartary and the bazaars	F
Seething with traffic of enormous Ind	J
	-
Thus cried thus called aloud to the child heart	J
The magian East thus the child eyes	F
Spelled out the wizard message by the light	J
Of the sober workaday hours	F
They saw week in week out pass and still pass	F
In the sleepy Minster City folded kind	J
In ancient Severn's arm	P
Amongst her water meadows and her docks	F
Whose floating populace of ships	F
Galliots and luggers light heeled brigantines	F
Bluff barques and rake hell fore and afters brought	J
To her very doorsteps and geraniums	F
The scents of the World's End the calls	F
That may not be gainsaid to rise and ride	J
Like fire on some high errand of the race	F
The irresistible appeals	F
For comradeship that sound	J
Steadily from the irresistible sea	F
Thus the East laughed and whispered and the tale	C2
Telling itself anew	S
In terms of living labouring life	L2
Took on the colours busked it in the wear	S
Of life that lived and laboured and Romance	F
The Angel Playmate raining down	T
His golden influences	F
On all I saw and all I dreamed and did	J
Walked with me arm in arm	P
Or left me as one bediademed with straws	F
And bits of glass to gladden at my heart	J
Who had the gift to seek and feel and find	J
His fiery hearted presence everywhere	S
Even so dear Hesper bringer of all good things	F
Sends the same silver dews	F
Of happiness down her dim delighted skies	F
On some poor collier hamlet mound on mound	J
Of sifted squalor here a soot throated stalk	B2
Sullenly smoking over a row	T
Of flat faced hovels black in the gritty air	S
A web of rails and wheels and beams with strings	F
Of hurtling tipping trams	F
As on the amorous nightingales	F
And roses of Shiraz or the walls and towers	F
Of Samarcand the Ineffable whence you espy	F
The splendour of Ginnistan's embattled spears	F
Like listed lightnings	F
Samarcand	J
That name of names That star vaned belvedere	S
Builded against the Chambers of the South	T2
That outpost on the Infinite	J
And behold	J
Questing therefrom you knew not what wild tide	J
Might overtake you for one fringe	C
One suburb is stablished on firm earth but one	T
Floats founded vague	B2
In lubberlands delectable isles of palm	U2
And lotus fortunate mains far shimmering seas	F
The promise of wistful hills	F
The shining shifting Sovranties of Dream	K2

William Ernest Henley

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