Grandmother-s Teaching Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCC DDEEFF GGHHIJ KKLLMM NNOOPP DDQQRR STUUVV WWXXYY ZZA2A2NN B2B2C2C2D2 E2E2ZZEE F2F2G2H2I2I2 J2J2K2K2DD L2L2M2M2UU N2N2J2J2O2O2 P2P2Q2Q2NN FFQ2Q2EE J2J2R2R2FGrandmother dear you do not know you have lived the old world life | A |
Under the twittering eaves of home sheltered from storm and strife | A |
Rocking cradles and covering jams knitting socks for baby feet | B |
Or piecing together lavender bags for keeping the linen sweet | B |
Daughter wife and mother in turn and each with a blameless breast | C |
Then saying your prayers when the nightfall came and quietly dropping to rest | C |
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You must not think Granny I speak in scorn for yours have been well spent days | D |
And none ever paced with more faithful feet the dutiful ancient ways | D |
Grandfather's gone but while he lived you clung to him close and true | E |
And mother's heart like her eyes I know came to her straight from you | E |
If the good old times at the good old pace in the good old grooves would run | F |
One could not do better I'm sure of that than do as you all have done | F |
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But the world has wondrously changed Granny since the days when you were young | G |
It thinks quite different thoughts from then and speaks with a different tongue | G |
The fences are broken the cords are snapped that tethered man's heart to home | H |
He ranges free as the wind or the wave and changes his shore like the foam | H |
He drives his furrows through fallow seas he reaps what the breakers sow | I |
And the flash of his iron flail is seen mid the barns of the barren snow | J |
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He has lassoed the lightning and led it home he has yoked it unto his need | K |
And made it answer the rein and trudge as straight as the steer or steed | K |
He has bridled the torrents and made them tame he has bitted the champing tide | L |
It toils as his drudge and turns the wheels that spin for his use and pride | L |
He handles the planets and weighs their dust he mounts on the comet's car | M |
And he lifts the veil of the sun and stares in the eyes of the uttermost star | M |
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'Tis not the same world you knew Granny its fetters have fallen off | N |
The lowliest now may rise and rule where the proud used to sit and scoff | N |
No need to boast of a scutcheoned stock claim rights from an ancient wrong | O |
All are born with a silver spoon in their mouths whose gums are sound and strong | O |
And I mean to be rich and great Granny I mean it with heart and soul | P |
At my feet is the ball I will roll it on till it spins through the golden goal | P |
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Out on the thought that my copious life should trickle through trivial days | D |
Myself but a lonelier sort of beast watching the cattle graze | D |
Scanning the year's monotonous change gaping at wind and rain | Q |
Or hanging with meek solicitous eyes on the whims of a creaking vane | Q |
Wretched if ewes drop single lambs blest so is oilcake cheap | R |
And growing old in a tedious round of worry surfeit and sleep | R |
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You dear old Granny how sweet your smile and how soft your silvery hari | S |
But all has moved on while you sate still in your cap and easy chair | T |
The torch of knowledge is lit for all it flashes from hand to hand | U |
The alien tongues of the earth converse and whisper from strand to strand | U |
The very churches are changed and boast new hymns new rites new truth | V |
Men worship a wiser and greater God than the halfknown God of your youth | V |
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What marry Connie and set up house and dwell where my fathers dwelt | W |
Giving the homely feasts they gave and kneeling where they knelt | W |
She is pretty and good and void I am sure of vanity greed or guile | X |
But she has not travelled nor seen the world and is lacking in air and style | X |
Women now are as wise and strong as men and vie with men in renown | Y |
The wife that will help to build my fame was not bred near a country town | Y |
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What a notion to figure at parish boards and wrangle o'er cess and rate | Z |
I who mean to sit for the county yet and vote on an Empire's fate | Z |
To take the chair at the Farmers' Feast and tickle their bumpkin ears | A2 |
Who must shake a senate before I die and waken a people's cheers | A2 |
In the olden days was no choice so sons to the roof of their fathers clave | N |
But now 'twere to perish before one's time and to sleep in a living grave | N |
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I see that you do not understand How should you Your memory clings | B2 |
To the simple music of silenced days and the skirts of vanishing things | B2 |
Your fancy wanders round ruined haunts and dwells upon oft told tales | C2 |
Your eyes discern not the widening dawn nor your ears catch the rising gales | C2 |
But live on Granny till I come back and then perhaps you will own | D2 |
The dear old Past is an empty nest and the Present the brood that is flown '' | - |
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And so my dear you've come back at last I always fancied you would | E2 |
Well you see the old home of your childhood's days is standing where it stood | E2 |
The roses still clamber from porch to roof the elder is white at the gate | Z |
And over the long smooth gravel path the peacock still struts in state | Z |
On the gabled lodge as of old in the sun the pigeons sit and coo | E |
And our hearts my dear are no whit more changed but have kept still warm for you | E |
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You'll find little altered unless it be me and that since my last attack | F2 |
But so that you only give me time I can walk to the church and back | F2 |
You bade me not die till you returned and so you see I lived on | G2 |
I'm glad that I did now you've really come but it's almost time I was gone | H2 |
I suppose that there isn't room for us all and the old should depart the first | I2 |
That's as it should be What is sad is to bury the dead you've nursed | I2 |
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Won't you have bit nor sup my dear Not even a glass of whey | J2 |
The dappled Alderney calved last week and the baking is fresh to day | J2 |
Have you lost your appetite too in town or is it you've grown over nice | K2 |
If you'd rather have biscuits and cowslip wine they'll bring them up in a trice | K2 |
But what am I saying Your coming down has set me all in a maze | D |
I forgot that you travelled here by train I was thinking of coaching days | D |
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There sit you down and give me your hand and tell me about it all | L2 |
From the day that you left us keen to go to the pride that had a fall | L2 |
And all went well at the first So it does when we're young and puffed with hope | M2 |
But the foot of the hill is quicker reached the easier seems the slope | M2 |
And men thronged round you and women too Yes that I can understand | U |
When there's gold in the palm the greedy world is eager to grasp the hand | U |
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I heard them tell of your smart town house but I always shook my head | N2 |
One doesn't grow rich in a year and a day in the time of my youth 'twas said | N2 |
Men do not reap in the spring my dear nor are granaries filled in May | J2 |
Save it be with the harvest of former years stored up for a rainy day | J2 |
The seasons will keep their own true time you can hurry nor furrow nor sod | O2 |
It's honest labour and steadfast thrift that alone are blest by God | O2 |
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You say you were honest I trust you were nor do I judge you my dear | P2 |
I have old fashioned ways and it's quite enough to keep one's own conscience clear | P2 |
But still the commandment Thou shalt not steal '' though a simple and ancient rule | Q2 |
Was not made for modern cunning to baulk nor for any new age to befool | Q2 |
And if my growing rich unto others brought but penury chill and grief | N |
I should feel though I never had filched with my hands I was only a craftier thief | N |
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That isn't the way they look at it there All worshipped the rising sun | F |
Most of all the fine lady in pride of purse you fancied your heart had won | F |
I don't want to hear of her beauty or birth I reckon her foul and low | Q2 |
Far better a steadfast cottage wench than grand loves that come and go | Q2 |
To cleave to their husbands through weal through woe is all women have to do | E |
In growing as clever as men they seem to have matched them in fickleness too | E |
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But there's one in whose heart has your image still dwelt through many an absent day | J2 |
As the scent of a flower will haunt a closed room though the flower be taken away | J2 |
Connie's not quite so young as she was no doubt but faithfulness never grows old | R2 |
And were beauty the only fuel of love the warmest hearth soon would grow cold | R2 |
Once you thought that she had not travelled and knew nei | F |
Alfred Austin
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