Banwell Hill; A Lay Of The Severn Sea. Part Fourth Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B CDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUV GWBXYZA2CZB2VC2D2LE2 F2C2G2H2H2I2J2K2L2K2 K2M2N2K2O2P2ZQ2K2C2C 2VC2YC2K2K2L2K2K2I2R 2S2S2K2T2U2K2L2V2W2K 2X2Y2LK2Z2A3U2K2B3K2 O2K2R2K2K2BK2L2K2U2Y K2U2B3BC3K2YD3E3K2K2 F3G3X2H3I3K2Q2EJ2K2J 3K3K2L3EM3N3G3K2K2K2 O3B3W2P3Q3I2R3I2K2S3 PH3T3U3K2V3C2W3TT3X3 K2Z2Y3K2K2Z3K2S3C2C2 BK2F2G3A4EB4I2C4D4O3 K2K2C4E4K2H3F4F3L3K2 G4Z3K2H4I4B3J4K2K2K4 C3L4C4L3O3G3M4L2N4O4 L4LK2P4Q4G3D3R4S4K2C 3P2ET4L2M3B3U4V4S4BW 4K2N4B4M3Q2JBX4S4G2Y 4 BBR2E K2K2Z4 H3K2K2PART FOURTH | A |
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WALK ABROAD VIEWS AROUND FROM THE SEVERN TO BRISTOL WRINGTON AULD ROBIN GRAY | B |
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The shower is past the heath bell at our feet | C |
Looks up as with a smile though the cold dew | D |
Hangs yet within its cup like Pity's tear | E |
Upon the eyelids of a village child | F |
Mark where a light upon those far off waves | G |
Gleams while the passing shower above our head | H |
Sheds its last silent drops amid the hues | I |
Of the fast fading rainbow such is life | J |
Let us go forth the redbreast is abroad | K |
And dripping in the sunshine sings again | L |
No object on the wider sea line meets | M |
The straining vision but one distant ship | N |
Hanging as motionless and still far off | O |
In the pale haze between the sea and sky | P |
She seems the ship the very ship I saw | Q |
In infancy and in that very place | R |
Whilst I and all around me have grown old | S |
Since she was first descried and there she sits | T |
A solitary thing of the wide main | U |
As she sat years ago Yet she moves on | V |
To morrow all may be one waste of waves | G |
Where is she bound We know not and no voice | W |
Will tell us where Perhaps she beats her way | B |
Slow up the channel after many years | X |
Returning from some distant clime or lands | Y |
Beyond the Atlantic Oh what anxious eyes | Z |
Count every nearer surge that heaves around | A2 |
How many anxious hearts this moment beat | C |
With thronging thoughts of home till those fixed eyes | Z |
Intensely fixed upon these very hills | B2 |
Are filled with tears Perhaps she wanders on | V |
On on into the world of the vast sea | C2 |
There to be lost never with homeward sails | D2 |
Destined to greet these far seen hills again | L |
Now fading into mist So let her speed | E2 |
And we will pray she may return in joy | F2 |
When every storm is past Such is this sea | C2 |
That shows one wandering ship How different smile | G2 |
The sea scenes of the south and chiefly thine | H2 |
Waters of loveliest Hampton chiefly thine | H2 |
Where I have passed the happiest hours of youth | I2 |
Waters of loveliest Hampton Thy gray walls | J2 |
And loop hooled battlements cast the same shade | K2 |
Upon the light blue wave as when of yore | L2 |
Beneath their arch King Canute sat and chid | K2 |
The tide that came regardless to his feet | K2 |
A thousand years ago Oh how unlike | M2 |
Yon solitary sea the summer shines | N2 |
There while a crowd of glancing vessels glide | K2 |
Filled with the young and gay and pennants wave | O2 |
And sails at distance beautifully swell | P2 |
To the light breeze or pass like butterflies | Z |
Amid the smoking steamers And oh look | Q2 |
Look what a fairy lady is that yacht | K2 |
That turns the wooded point and silently | C2 |
Streams up the sylvan Itchin silently | C2 |
And yet as if she said as she went on | V |
Who does not gaze at me | C2 |
Yon winding sands | Y |
Were solitary once as the wide sea | C2 |
Such I remember them No sound was heard | K2 |
Save of the sea gull warping on the wind | K2 |
Or of the surge that broke along the shore | L2 |
Sad as the seas and can I e'er forget | K2 |
When once a visitor from Oxenford | K2 |
Proud of Wintonian scholarship a youth | I2 |
Silent but yet light hearted deeming here | R2 |
I could have no companion fit for him | S2 |
So whispered youthful vanity for him | S2 |
Whom Oxford had distinguished can my heart | K2 |
Forget when once with thoughts like these at morn | T2 |
I wandered forth alone The first ray shone | U2 |
On the white sea gull's wing and gazing round | K2 |
I listened to the tide's advancing roar | L2 |
When for the old and booted fisherman | V2 |
Who silent dredged for shrimps in the cold haze | W2 |
Of sunrise I beheld or was it not | K2 |
A momentary vision a fair form | X2 |
A female following with light airy step | Y2 |
The wave as it retreated and again | L |
Tripping before it till it touched her foot | K2 |
As if in play and she stood beautiful | Z2 |
Like to a fairy sea maid of the deep | A3 |
Graceful and young and on the sands alone | U2 |
I looked that she would vanish She had left | K2 |
Like me just left the abode of discipline | B3 |
And came in the gay fulness of her heart | K2 |
When the pale light first glanced along the wave | O2 |
To play with the wild ocean like a child | K2 |
And though I knew her not I vowed oh hear | R2 |
Ye votaries of German sentiment | K2 |
Vowed an eternal love but diffident | K2 |
I cast a parting look that seemed to say | B |
Shall we ne'er meet again The vision smiled | K2 |
And left the scene to solitude Once more | L2 |
We met and then we parted in this world | K2 |
To meet no more and that fair form that shone | U2 |
The vision of a moment on the sands | Y |
Was never seen again Now it has passed | K2 |
Where all things are forgotten but it shone | U2 |
To me a sparkle of the morning sun | B3 |
That trembled on the light wave yesterday | B |
And perished there for ever | C3 |
Look around | K2 |
Above the winding reach of Severn stands | Y |
With massy fragments of forsaken towers | D3 |
Thy castle solitary Walton Hark | E3 |
Through the lone ivied arch was it the wind | K2 |
Came fitful There by moonlight we might stand | K2 |
And deem it some old castle of romance | F3 |
And on the glimmering ledge of yonder rock | G3 |
Above the wave fancy it was the form | X2 |
Of a spectre lady for a moment seen | H3 |
Lifting her bloody dagger then with shrieks | I3 |
Vanishing Hush there is no sound no sound | K2 |
But of the Severn sweeping onward Look | Q2 |
There is no bleeding apparition there | E |
No fiery phantoms glare along thy walls | J2 |
Surrounded by the works of silent art | K2 |
And far far more endearing by a group | J3 |
Of breathing children their possessor lives | K3 |
And ill should I deserve the name of bard | K2 |
Of courtly bard if I could touch this theme | L3 |
Without a prayer an earnest heartfelt prayer | E |
When one whose smile I never saw but once | M3 |
Yet cannot well forget when one now blooms | N3 |
Unlike the spectre lady of the rock | G3 |
A living and a lovely bride | K2 |
How proud | K2 |
Opposed to Walton's silent towers how proud | K2 |
With all her spires and fanes and volumed smoke | O3 |
Trailing in columns to the midday sun | B3 |
Black or pale blue above the cloudy haze | W2 |
And the great stir of commerce and the noise | P3 |
Of passing and repassing wains and cars | Q3 |
And sledges grating in their underpath | I2 |
And trade's deep murmur and a street of masts | R3 |
And pennants from all nations of the earth | I2 |
Streaming below the houses piled aloft | K2 |
Hill above hill and every road below | S3 |
Gloomy with troops of coal nymphs seated high | P |
On their rough pads in dingy dust serene | H3 |
How proudly amid sights and sounds like these | T3 |
Bristol through all whose smoke dark and aloof | U3 |
Stands Redcliff's solemn fane how proudly girt | K2 |
With villages and Clifton's airy rocks | V3 |
Bristol the mistress of the Severn sea | C2 |
Bristol amid her merchant palaces | W3 |
That ancient city sits | T |
From out those trees | T3 |
Look Congresbury lifts its slender spire | X3 |
How many woody glens and nooks of shade | K2 |
With transient sunshine fill the interval | Z2 |
As rich as Poussin's landscapes Gnarled oaks | Y3 |
Dark or with fits of desultory light | K2 |
Flung through the branches there o'erhang the road | K2 |
Where sheltered as romantic Brockley Coombe | Z3 |
Allures the lingering traveller to wind | K2 |
Step by step up its sylvan hollow slow | S3 |
Till the proud summit gained how gloriously | C2 |
The wide scene lies in light how gloriously | C2 |
Sun shadows and blue mountains far away | B |
Woods meadows and the mighty Severn blend | K2 |
While the gray heron up shoots and screams for joy | F2 |
There the dark yew starts from the limestone rock | G3 |
Into faint sunshine there the ivy hangs | A4 |
From the old oak whose upper branches bare | E |
Seem as admonishing the nether woods | B4 |
Of Time's swift pace while dark and deep beneath | I2 |
The fearful hollow yawns upon whose edge | C4 |
One peeping cot sends up from out the fern | D4 |
Its early wreath of slow ascending smoke | O3 |
And who lives in that far secluded cot | K2 |
Poor Dinah She was once a serving maid | K2 |
Most beautiful now on the wild wood's edge | C4 |
She lives alone alone and bowed with age | E4 |
Muttering and sad and scarce within the sound | K2 |
Of human kind forsaken as the scene | H3 |
Nor pass we Fayland with its fairy rings | F4 |
Marking the turf where tiny elves may dance | F3 |
Their light feet twinkling in the dewy gleam | L3 |
By moonlight But what sullen demon piled | K2 |
The rocks that stern in desolation frown | G4 |
Through the deep solitude of Goblin Coombe | Z3 |
Where wheeling o'er its crags the shrilling kite | K2 |
More dismal makes its utter dreariness | H4 |
But yonder at the foot of Mendip smiles | I4 |
The seat of cultivated Addington | B3 |
And there that beautiful but solemn church | J4 |
Presides o'er the still scene where one old friend | K2 |
Lives social while the shortening day unfelt | K2 |
Steals on and eve with smiling light descends | K4 |
With smiling light that lingering on the tower | C3 |
Reminds earth's pilgrim of his lasting home | L4 |
Is that a magic garden on the edge | C4 |
Of Mendip hung Even so it seems to gleam | L3 |
While many a cottage on to Wrington's smoke | O3 |
Wrington the birth place of immortal Locke | G3 |
Chequers the village crofts and lowly glens | M4 |
With porch of flowers and bird cage at the door | L2 |
That seems to say England with all thy crimes | N4 |
And smitten as thou art by pauper laws | O4 |
England thou only art the poor man's home | L4 |
And yonder Blagdon in its sheltered glen | L |
Sits pensive like a rock bird in its cleft | K2 |
The craggy glen here winds with ivy hung | P4 |
Beneath whose dark depending tresses peeps | Q4 |
The Cheddar pink there fragments of red rock | G3 |
Start from the verdant turf among the flowers | D3 |
And who can paint sweet Blagdon and not think | R4 |
Of Langhorne in that hermitage of song | S4 |
Langhorne a pastor and a poet too | K2 |
He in retirement's literary bower | C3 |
Oft wooed the Sisters of the sacred well | P2 |
Harmonious nor pass on without a prayer | E |
For her associate of his early fame | T4 |
Accomplished eloquent and pious More | L2 |
Who now with slow and gentle decadence | M3 |
In the same vale with look upraised to heaven | B3 |
Waits meekly at the gate of paradise | U4 |
Smiling at time | V4 |
But hark there comes a song | S4 |
Of Scotland's lakes and hills Auld Robin Gray | B |
Tweed or the winding Tay ne'er echoed words | W4 |
More sadly soothing but the melody | K2 |
Like some sweet melody of olden times | N4 |
A ditty of past days rose from those woods | B4 |
Oh could I hear it as I heard it once | M3 |
Sung by a maiden of the south whose look | Q2 |
Although her song be sweet whose look and life | J |
Are sweeter than her song no minstrel gray | B |
Like Donald and the Lady of the Lake | X4 |
But would lay down his harp and when the song | S4 |
Was ended raise his lighted eyes and smile | G2 |
To thank that maiden with a strain like this | Y4 |
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Oh when I hear thee sing of Jamie far away | B |
Of father and of mother and of Auld Robin Gray | B |
I listen till I think it is Jeanie's self I hear | R2 |
And I look in thy face with a blessing and a tear | E |
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I look in thy face for my heart it is not cold | K2 |
Though winter's frost is stealing on and I am growing old | K2 |
Those tones I shall remember as long as I live | Z4 |
And a blessing and a tear shall be the thanks I give | |
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The tear it is for summers that so blithesome have been | |
For the flowers that all are faded and the days that I have seen | H3 |
The blessing lassie is for thee whose song so sadly sweet | K2 |
Recalls the music of Lang Syne to which my heart has beat | K2 |
William Lisle Bowles
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