The Key Note Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CBCB DEDE FGFH IJIJ KLKL MNM OHOH PBPB QRQR SBSB| I dreamed I was dreaming one morn as I lay | A |
| In a garden with flowers teeming | B |
| On an island I lay in a mystical bay | A |
| In the dream I dreamed I was dreaming | B |
| - | |
| The ghost of a scent had it followed me there | C |
| From the place where I truly was resting | B |
| It filled like an anthem the aisles of the air | C |
| The presence of roses attesting | B |
| - | |
| Yet I thought in the dream that I dreamed I dreamed | D |
| That the place was all barren of roses | E |
| That it only seemed and the place I deemed | D |
| Was the Isle of Bewildered Noses | E |
| - | |
| Full many a seaman had testified | F |
| How all who sailed near were enchanted | G |
| And landed to search and in searching died | F |
| For the roses the Sirens had planted | H |
| - | |
| For the Sirens were dead and the billows boomed | I |
| In the stead of their singing forever | J |
| But the roses bloomed on the graves of the doomed | I |
| Though man had discovered them never | J |
| - | |
| I though in my dream 'twas an idle tale | K |
| A delusion that mariners cherished | L |
| That the fragrance loading the conscious gale | K |
| Was a ghost of a rose long perished | L |
| - | |
| I said 'I will fly from this island of woes ' | - |
| And acting on that decision | M |
| By that odor of rose I was led by the nose | N |
| For 'twas truly ah truly Elysian | M |
| - | |
| I ran in my madness to seek out the source | O |
| Of the redolent river directed | H |
| By some supernatural sinister force | O |
| To a forest dark haunted infected | H |
| - | |
| And still as I threaded 'twas all in the dream | P |
| That I dreamed I was dreaming each turning | B |
| There were many a scream and a sudden gleam | P |
| Of eyes all uncannily burning | B |
| - | |
| The leaves were all wet with a horrible dew | Q |
| That mirrored the red moon's crescent | R |
| And all shapes were fringed with a ghostly blue | Q |
| Dim wavering phosphorescent | R |
| - | |
| But the fragrance divine coming strong and free | S |
| Led me on though my blood was clotting | B |
| Till ah joy I could see on the limbs of a tree | S |
| Mine enemies hanging and rotting | B |
Ambrose Bierce
(1)
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