Childe Harold's Last Pilgrimage Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBBDBDD EBEBBFBGF AHCHHIHJK LDLDDMNMM OPOPPQPEE RSRSSNSNN| So ends Childe Harold his last pilgrimage | A |
| Above the Malian surge he stood and cried | B |
| Liberty and the shores from age to age | C |
| Renowned and Sparta's woods and rocks replied | B |
| Liberty But a spectre at his side | B |
| Stood mocking and its dart uplifting high | D |
| Smote him he sank to earth in life's fair pride | B |
| Sparta thy rocks echoed another cry | D |
| And old Ilissus sighed Die generous exile die | D |
| - | |
| I will not ask sad pity to deplore | E |
| His wayward errors who thus early died | B |
| Still less Childe Harold now thou art no more | E |
| Will I say aught of genius misapplied | B |
| Of the past shadows of thy spleen or pride | B |
| But I will bid the Arcadian cypress wave | F |
| Pluck the green laurel from Peneus' side | B |
| And pray thy spirit may such quiet have | G |
| That not one thought unkind be murmured o'er thy grave | F |
| - | |
| So ends Childe Harold his last pilgrimage | A |
| Ends in that region in that land renowned | H |
| Whose mighty genius lives in Glory's page | C |
| And on the Muses' consecrated ground | H |
| His pale cheek fading where his brows were bound | H |
| With their unfading wreath I will not call | I |
| The nymphs from Pindus' piny shades profound | H |
| But strew some flowers upon thy sable pall | J |
| And follow to the grave a Briton's funeral | K |
| - | |
| Slow move the plumed hearse the mourning train | L |
| I mark the long procession with a sigh | D |
| Silently passing to that village fane | L |
| Where Harold thy forefathers mouldering lie | D |
| Where sleeps the mother who with tearful eye | D |
| Pondering the fortunes of thy onward road | M |
| Hung o'er the slumbers of thine infancy | N |
| Who here released from every human load | M |
| Receives her long lost child to the same calm abode | M |
| - | |
| Bursting Death's silence could that mother speak | O |
| When first the earth is heaped upon thy head | P |
| In thrilling but with hollow accent weak | O |
| She thus might give the welcome of the dead | P |
| Here rest my son with me the dream is fled | P |
| The motley mask and the great coil are o'er | Q |
| Welcome to me and to this wormy bed | P |
| Where deep forgetfulness succeeds the roar | E |
| Of earth and fretting passions waste the heart no more | E |
| - | |
| Here rest on all thy wanderings peace repose | R |
| After the fever of thy toilsome way | S |
| No interruption this long silence knows | R |
| Here no vain phantoms lead the soul astray | S |
| The earth worm feeds on his unconscious prey | S |
| Here both shall sleep in peace till earth and sea | N |
| Give up their dead at that last awful day | S |
| King Lord Almighty Judge remember me | N |
| And may Heaven's mercy rest my erring child on thee | N |
William Lisle Bowles
(1)
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