Primroses Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDDEEFFGGGGGHHIIGG JJKKHHLL AHHHHHHGGGGGGHHMMGGK KKKGGGGNNOOGGPPQQ ARRNNQQGGRRHHSSGGTTH HKKSNHHUUKKHHVVAAWWI | A |
Latest earliest of the year | B |
Primroses that still were here | C |
Snugly nestling round the boles | D |
Of the cut down chestnut poles | D |
When December's tottering tread | E |
Rustled 'mong the deep leaves dead | E |
And with confident young faces | F |
Peeped from out the sheltered places | F |
When pale January lay | G |
In its cradle day by day | G |
Dead or living hard to say | G |
Now that mid March blows and blusters | G |
Out you steal in tufts and clusters | G |
Making leafless lane and wood | H |
Vernal with your hardihood | H |
Other lovely things are rare | I |
You are prodigal as fair | I |
First you come by ones and ones | G |
Lastly in battalions | G |
Skirmish along hedge and bank | J |
Turn old Winter's wavering flank | J |
Round his flying footsteps hover | K |
Seize on hollow ridge and cover | K |
Leave nor slope nor hill unharried | H |
Till his snowy trenches carried | H |
O'er his sepulchre you laugh | L |
Winter's joyous epitaph | L |
- | |
II | A |
This too be your glory great | H |
Primroses you do not wait | H |
As the other flowers do | H |
For the Spring to smile on you | H |
But with coming are content | H |
Asking no encouragement | H |
Ere the hardy crocus cleaves | G |
Sunny border 'neath the eaves | G |
Ere the thrush his song rehearse | G |
Sweeter than all poets' verse | G |
Ere the early bleating lambs | G |
Cling like shadows to their dams | G |
Ere the blackthorn breaks to white | H |
Snowy hooded anchorite | H |
Out from every hedge you look | M |
You are bright by every brook | M |
Wearing for your sole defence | G |
Fearlessness of innocence | G |
While the daffodils still waver | K |
Ere the jonquil gets its savour | K |
While the linnets yet but pair | K |
You are fledged and everywhere | K |
Nought can daunt you nought distress | G |
Neither cold nor sunlessness | G |
You when Lent sleet flies apace | G |
Look the tempest in the face | G |
As descend the flakes more slow | N |
From your eyelids shake the snow | N |
And when all the clouds have flown | O |
Meet the sun's smile with your own | O |
Nothing ever makes you less | G |
Gracious to ungraciousness | G |
March may bluster up and down | P |
Pettish April sulk and frown | P |
Closer to their skirts you cling | Q |
Coaxing Winter to be Spring | Q |
- | |
III | A |
Then when your sweet task is done | R |
And the wild flowers one by one | R |
Here there everywhere do blow | N |
Primroses you haste to go | N |
Satisfied with what you bring | Q |
Fading morning stars of Spring | Q |
You have brightened doubtful days | G |
You have sweetened long delays | G |
Fooling our enchanted reason | R |
To miscalculate the season | R |
But when doubt and fear are fled | H |
When the kine leave wintry shed | H |
And 'mid grasses green and tall | S |
Find their fodder make their stall | S |
When the wintering swallow flies | G |
Homeward back from southern skies | G |
To the dear old cottage thatch | T |
Where it loves to build and hatch | T |
That its young may understand | H |
Nor forget this English land | H |
When the cuckoo mocking rover | K |
Laughs that April loves are over | K |
When the hawthorn all ablow | S |
Mimics the defeated snow | N |
Then you give one last look round | H |
Stir the sleepers underground | H |
Call the campion to awake | U |
Tell the speedwell courage take | U |
Bid the eyebright have no fear | K |
Whisper in the bluebell's ear | K |
Time has come for it to flood | H |
With its blue waves all the wood | H |
Mind the stichwort of its pledge | V |
To replace you in the hedge | V |
Bid the ladysmocks good bye | A |
Close your bonnie lids and die | A |
And without one look of blame | W |
Go as gently as you came | W |
Alfred Austin
(1)
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