How The Mead-slave Was Set Free Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABBAB CDDCD EFFEF GHHGH IJJIJ JKKJK LMNLN JOOJO PQQPQ JRRJR STTST

Nay move not Sit just as you areA
Under the carved wings of the chairB
The hearth glow sifting through your hairB
Turns every dim pearl to a starA
Dawn drowned in floods of brightening airB
-
I have been thinking of that nightC
When all the wide hall burst to blazeD
With spears caught up thrust fifty waysD
To find my throat while I lay whiteC
And sick with joy to think the daysD
-
I dragged out in your hateful NorthE
A slave constrained at banquet's needF
To fill the black bull's horns with meadF
For drunken sea thieves were henceforthE
Cast from me as a poison weedF
-
While Death thrust roses in my handsG
But you who knew the flowers he hadH
Were no such roses ripe and gladH
As nod in my far southern landsG
But pallid things to make men sadH
-
Put back the spears with one calm handI
Raised on your knee my wondering headJ
Wiped off the trickling drops of redJ
From my torn forehead with a strandI
Of your bright loosened hair and saidJ
-
Sea rovers would you kill a skaldJ
This boy has hearkened Odin singK
Unto the clang and winnowingK
Of raven's wings His heart is thralledJ
To music as to some strong kingK
-
And this great thraldom works disdainL
Of lesser serving Once releaseM
These bonds he bears and he may pleaseN
To give you guerdon sweet as rainL
To sailors calmed in thirsty seasN
-
Then having soothed their rage to restJ
You led me to old Skagi's throneO
Where yellow gold rims in the stoneO
And in my arms against my breastJ
Thrust his great harp of walrus boneO
-
How they came crowding tunes on tunesP
How good it was to touch the stringsQ
And feel them thrill like happy thingsQ
That flutter from the gray cocoonsP
On hedge rows in your gradual springsQ
-
All grew a blur before my sightJ
As when the stealthy white fog slipsR
At noonday on the staggering shipsR
I saw one single spot of lightJ
Your white face with its eager lipsR
-
And so I sang to that O thouS
Who liftedst me from out my shameT
Wert thou content when Skagi cameT
Put his own chaplet on my browS
And bent and kissed his own harp frameT

William Vaughn Moody



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