A Snow-white Lily Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GECE CECE CCC EHEH CCCC EEEE CDCD IJIJ CECC CCC CDCD CKCK ECEC ECEC LELE MNON LELEThere was a snow white lily | A |
Grew by a cottage door | B |
Such a white and wonderful lily | A |
Never was seen before | B |
- | |
The earth and the ether brought it | C |
Sustenance raiment grace | D |
And the feet of the west wind sought it | C |
And smiled in its smiling face | D |
- | |
Tall were its leaves and slender | E |
Slender and tall its stem | F |
Purity all its splendour | E |
Beauty its diadem | F |
- | |
Still from the ground it sprouted | G |
Statelier year by year | E |
Till loveliness clung about it | C |
And was its atmosphere | E |
- | |
And the fame of this lily was bruited | C |
'Mong men ever more and more | E |
They came and they saw and uprooted | C |
Its life from the cottage door | E |
- | |
For they said 'Twere shame 'twere pity | C |
It here should dwell half despised | C |
We must carry it off to the city | C |
Where lilies are loved and prized '' | - |
- | |
The city was moved to wonder | E |
And burst into praise and song | H |
And the multitude parted asunder | E |
To gaze on it borne along | H |
- | |
Along and aloft 'twas uplifted | C |
From palace to palace led | C |
Men vowed 'twas the lily most gifted | C |
Of lilies living or dead | C |
- | |
And wisdom and wealth and power | E |
Bowed down to it more and more | E |
Yet it never was quite the same flower | E |
That bloomed by the cottage door | E |
- | |
For no longer the night dews wrought it | C |
Raiment and food and grace | D |
Nor the feet of the west wind sought it | C |
To dance in its dimpling face | D |
- | |
'Twas pursued by the frivolous rabble | I |
With poisonous lips and eyes | J |
They drenched it with prurient babble | I |
And fed it with fulsome lies | J |
- | |
Thus into the lily there entered | C |
The taint of the tainted crew | E |
Till itself in itself grew centred | C |
And it flattery drank like dew | C |
- | |
Then tongues began words to bandy | C |
As to whose might the lily be | C |
'Tis mine '' said the titled dandy | C |
Said the plutocrat 'tis for me '' | - |
- | |
Thus over the lily they wrangled | C |
Making the beautiful base | D |
Till its purity seemed all mangled | C |
And its gracefulness half disgrace | D |
- | |
Next they who had first enthroned it | C |
And blatantly hymned its fame | K |
Now curdling their smiles disowned it | C |
And secretly schemed its shame | K |
- | |
The lily began to wither | E |
Since the world was no longer sweet | C |
And hands that had brought it thither | E |
Flung it into the street | C |
- | |
A sensitive soul and tender | E |
The flung away lily found | C |
He had seen it in hours of splendour | E |
So he lifted it from the ground | C |
- | |
He carried it back to the garden | L |
Where in olden days it grew | E |
And he knelt and prayed for it pardon | L |
From the sun and the breeze and the dew | E |
- | |
Then the breeze since it knows no malice | M |
And the sun that detesteth strife | N |
And the dew whose abode is the chalice | O |
Would have coaxed back the lily to life | N |
- | |
But the lily would not waken | L |
Nor ever will waken more | E |
And feet and fame have forsaken | L |
Its place by the cottage door | E |
Alfred Austin
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Herbert Madden: Written very well, the story has a message that beauty left in place will thrive
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