The Child's Music Lesson Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABABCC DEDEDEFF GHGIGIJJ KLMNMNOO PQPQPRSS BBBBBBPPWhy weep ye in your innocent toil at all | A |
Sweet little hands why halt and tremble so | B |
Full many a wrong note falls but let it fall | A |
Each note to me is like a golden glow | B |
Each broken cadence like a mourning call | A |
Nay clear and smooth I would not have you go | B |
Soft little hands upon the curtained threshold set | C |
Of this long life of labour and unrestful fret | C |
- | |
Soft sunlight flickers on the checkered green | D |
Warm winds are stirring round my dreaming seat | E |
Among the yellow pumpkin blooms that lean | D |
Their crumpled rims beneath the heavy heat | E |
The striped bees in lazy labour glean | D |
From bell to bell with golden feathered feet | E |
Yet even here the voices of hard life go by | F |
Outside the city strains with its eternal cry | F |
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Here as I sit the sunlight on my face | G |
And shadows of green leaves upon mine eyes | H |
My heart a garden in a hidden place | G |
Is full of folded buds of memories | I |
Stray hither then with all your old time grace | G |
Child voices trembling from the uncertain keys | I |
Play on ye little fingers touch the settled gloom | J |
And quickly one by one my waiting buds will bloom | J |
- | |
Ah me I may not set my feet again | K |
In any part of that old garden dear | L |
Or pluck one widening blossom for my pain | M |
But only at the wicket gaze I hear | N |
Old scents creep into mine inactive brain | M |
Smooth scents of things I may not come anear | N |
I see far off old beaten pathways they adorn | O |
I cannot feel with hands the blossom of the thorn | O |
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Toil on sweet hands once more I see the child | P |
The little child that was myself appears | Q |
And all the old time beauties undefiled | P |
Shine back to me across the opening years | Q |
Quick griefs that made the tender bosom wild | P |
Short blinding gusts that died in passionate tears | R |
Sweet life with all its change that now so happy seems | S |
With all its child heart glories and untutored dreams | S |
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Play on into the golden sunshine so | B |
Sweeter than all great artists' labouring | B |
I too was like you once an age ago | B |
God keep you dimpled fingers for you bring | B |
Quiet gliding ghosts to me of joy and woe | B |
No certain things at all that thrill or sting | B |
But only sounds and scents and savours of things bright | P |
No joy or aching pain but only dim delight | P |
Archibald Lampman
(1)
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