The Coal Picker Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGDDDCCD DCCCCHHIIDDJJCCKKLCC CMMNNEE| He perches in the slime inert | A |
| Bedaubed with iridescent dirt | A |
| The oil upon the puddles dries | B |
| To colours like a peacock's eyes | B |
| And half submerged tomato cans | C |
| Shine scaly as leviathans | C |
| Oozily crawling through the mud | D |
| The ground is here and there bestud | D |
| With lumps of only part burned coal | E |
| His duty is to glean the whole | E |
| To pick them from the filth each one | F |
| To hoard them for the hidden sun | F |
| Which glows within each fiery core | G |
| And waits to be made free once more | G |
| Their sharp and glistening edges cut | D |
| His stiffened fingers Through the smut | D |
| Gleam red the wounds which will not shut | D |
| Wet through and shivering he kneels | C |
| And digs the slippery coals like eels | C |
| They slide about His force all spent | D |
| He counts his small accomplishment | D |
| A half a dozen clinker coals | C |
| Which still have fire in their souls | C |
| Fire And in his thought there burns | C |
| The topaz fire of votive urns | C |
| He sees it fling from hill to hill | H |
| And still consumed is burning still | H |
| Higher and higher leaps the flame | I |
| The smoke an ever shifting frame | I |
| He sees a Spanish Castle old | D |
| With silver steps and paths of gold | D |
| From myrtle bowers comes the plash | J |
| Of fountains and the emerald flash | J |
| Of parrots in the orange trees | C |
| Whose blossoms pasture humming bees | C |
| He knows he feeds the urns whose smoke | K |
| Bears visions that his master stroke | K |
| Is out of dirt and misery | L |
| To light the fire of poesy | C |
| He sees the glory yet he knows | C |
| That others cannot see his shows | C |
| To them his smoke is sightless black | M |
| His votive vessels but a pack | M |
| Of old discarded shards his fire | N |
| A peddler's still to him the pyre | N |
| Is incensed an enduring goal | E |
| He sighs and grubs another coal | E |
Amy Lowell
(1)
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About The Coal Picker
The Coal Picker is a poem by Amy Lowell. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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