London Voluntaries - To Charles Whibley - Iv - Largo E Mesto Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACDBEBEFGGFHH IJJKILKMMLNNOKPOPKKK KPQQ KRKSTKRTUSKKUKVKWXW YYZA2A2B2C2B2ZC2C2ZQ UQUCDHH| Out of the poisonous East | A |
| Over a continent of blight | B |
| Like a maleficent Influence released | A |
| From the most squalid cellarage of hell | C |
| The Wind Fiend the abominable | D |
| The Hangman Wind that tortures temper and light | B |
| Comes slouching sullen and obscene | E |
| Hard on the skirts of the embittered night | B |
| And in a cloud unclean | E |
| Of excremental humours roused to strife | F |
| By the operation of some ruinous change | G |
| Wherever his evil mandate run and range | G |
| Into a dire intensity of life | F |
| A craftsman at his bench he settles down | H |
| To the grim job of throttling London Town | H |
| - | |
| So by a jealous lightlessness beset | I |
| That might have oppressed the dragons of old time | J |
| Crunching and groping in the abysmal slime | J |
| A cave of cut throat thoughts and villainous dreams | K |
| Hag rid and crying with cold and dirt and wet | I |
| The afflicted City prone from mark to mark | L |
| In shameful occultation seems | K |
| A nightmare labyrinthine dim and drifting | M |
| With wavering gulfs and antic heights and shifting | M |
| Rent in the stuff of a material dark | L |
| Wherein the lamplight scattered and sick and pale | N |
| Shows like the leper's living blotch of bale | N |
| Uncoiling monstrous into street on street | O |
| Paven with perils teeming with mischance | K |
| Where man and beast go blindfold and in dread | P |
| Working with oaths and threats and faltering feet | O |
| Somewhither in the hideousness ahead | P |
| Working through wicked airs and deadly dews | K |
| That make the laden robber grin askance | K |
| At the good places in his black romance | K |
| And the poor loitering harlot rather choose | K |
| Go pinched and pined to bed | P |
| Than lurk and shiver and curse her wretched way | Q |
| From arch to arch scouting some threepenny prey | Q |
| - | |
| Forgot his dawns and far flushed afterglows | K |
| His green garlands and windy eyots forgot | R |
| The old Father River flows | K |
| His watchfires cores of menace in the gloom | S |
| As he came oozing from the Pit and bore | T |
| Sunk in his filthily transfigured sides | K |
| Shoals of dishonoured dead to tumble and rot | R |
| In the squalor of the universal shore | T |
| His voices sounding through the gruesome air | U |
| As from the Ferry where the Boat of Doom | S |
| With her blaspheming cargo reels and rides | K |
| The while his children the brave ships | K |
| No more adventurous and fair | U |
| Nor tripping it light of heel as home bound brides | K |
| But infamously enchanted | V |
| Huddle together in the foul eclipse | K |
| Or feel their course by inches desperately | W |
| As through a tangle of alleys murder haunted | X |
| From sinister reach to reach out out to sea | W |
| - | |
| And Death the while | Y |
| Death with his well worn lean professional smile | Y |
| Death in his threadbare working trim | Z |
| Comes to your bedside unannounced and bland | A2 |
| And with expert inevitable hand | A2 |
| Feels at your windpipe fingers you in the lung | B2 |
| Or flicks the clot well into the labouring heart | C2 |
| Thus signifying unto old and young | B2 |
| However hard of mouth or wild of whim | Z |
| 'Tis time 'tis time by his ancient watch to part | C2 |
| From books and women and talk and drink and art | C2 |
| And you go humbly after him | Z |
| To a mean suburban lodging on the way | Q |
| To what or where | U |
| Not Death who is old and very wise can say | Q |
| And you how should you care | U |
| So long as unreclaimed of hell | C |
| The Wind Fiend the insufferable | D |
| Thus vicious and thus patient sits him down | H |
| To the black job of burking London Town | H |
William Ernest Henley
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
About London Voluntaries - To Charles Whibley - Iv - Largo E Mesto
London Voluntaries - To Charles Whibley - Iv - Largo E Mesto is a poem by William Ernest Henley. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
Write your comment about London Voluntaries - To Charles Whibley - Iv - Largo E Mesto poem by William Ernest Henley
Best Poems of William Ernest Henley
