A Ballad of Boding
A watcher sees three barges sailing east: one crew pursues pleasure, another contends for wealth and power, and the third rows through hardship; people move between them. A horned monster aids the first two vessels, then boards the third in a gentler guise, prompting desperate prayers until a radiant winged figure throws him overboard. The monster attacks the first two crews, whose ships sink or break apart, while the third vessel sails into heavenly splendor.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Ballad, Allegorical Poetry, Religious Poetry · 2,158 words
First lines
There are sleeping dreams and waking dreams; / What seems is not always as it seems.
I looked out of my window in the sweet new morning, / And there I saw three barges of manifold adorning / Went sailing toward the East: / The first had sails like fire, / The next like glittering wire, / But sackcloth were the sails of the least; / And all the crews made music, and two had spread a feast.
Genres
- Ballad — Rhyming stanzas carry a maritime story through exchanges between crews, a monstrous intrusion, a rescue, and the vessels' contrasting destinations.
- Allegorical Poetry — The barges' figureheads, cargoes, and crews connect pleasure, power, and arduous endurance with destruction or heavenly arrival.
- Religious Poetry — The third crew's desperate prayer precedes a radiant rescuer's intervention, and their voyage ends in a festival above the sun, moon, and stars.
Tags
sea voyages · pleasure · wealth and power · temptation · supernatural rescue · shipwreck
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A Ballad of Boding is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Ballad, Allegorical Poetry, Religious Poetry
- Length: 2,158 words
- Structure: 1 section, 16 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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