The Four Queens (maoriland) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCBDCCDEFDDFE GHFFHHFFH IJKKIJ LMFNMMNNMDHHODP FKEEKKEEKQQQRDR| Wellington | A |
| HERE where the surges of a world of sea | B |
| Break on our bastioned walls with league long sweep | C |
| Four fair young queens their lonely splendour keep | C |
| Each in a city throned The first is she | B |
| Whose face is arrogant with empery | D |
| Her throne from out the wounded hill side steep | C |
| Is rudely fashioned and beneath her creep | C |
| The narrow streets and stretching broad and free | D |
| Like a green waving meadow lies the bay | E |
| With blossom sails and flower wavelots flecked | F |
| Elate she stands her brown and windblown hair | D |
| Haloes a face with virgin freshness fair | D |
| As she receives exuberant erect | F |
| The stubborn homage that her sisters pay | E |
| - | |
| - | |
| Dunedin | G |
| And one is fair and winsome and her face | H |
| Is strung with winter's kisses and is yet | F |
| With winter's tears of parting sorrow wet | F |
| And all her figure speaks of bonny grace | H |
| High on the circling hills her seat has place | H |
| Within a bower of the green bush set | F |
| And 'neath her feet the city slopes a net | F |
| Of broad b ilt streets and green girt garden space | H |
| - | |
| Above her high the suburbs climb to crown | I |
| Her city's battlements and in her thrall | J |
| Lie sleeping fiords and forests call her queen | K |
| About her waist she winds a belt of green | K |
| And on her gleaming city looking down | I |
| She hears the Siren South for ever call | J |
| - | |
| Christchurch | L |
| And one within a level city lies | M |
| To whose tree shaded streets and squares succeed | F |
| A vista of white roads and bordering meads | N |
| Until each suburb in the great plain dies | M |
| The clustering spires to crown her fair head rise | M |
| And for a girdle round her form she leads | N |
| The Avon green with waving river weeds | N |
| And swept with swaying willows And her eyes | M |
| Are quiet with a student's reverie | D |
| And in the hair that clouds her dreaming face | H |
| There lurks the fragrance of some older place | H |
| And memories awake to die again | O |
| As confident and careless glad and sorrow free | D |
| She waits queen of the margeless golden plain | P |
| - | |
| Auckland | F |
| Set all about with walls the last fair queen | K |
| Over a tropic city holds her sway | E |
| Her throne on sleeping Eden whence through grey | E |
| And red strewn roads and gleaming gardens green | K |
| The city wanders on and seems to lean | K |
| To bathe her beauty in the cool clear bay | E |
| That out past isle and islet winds its way | E |
| To the wide ocean In her hair a sheen | K |
| Of sunlight lives her face is sweetly pale | Q |
| A queen who seems too young and maidenly | Q |
| Her beauty all too delicate and frail | Q |
| To hold a sway imperious But forth | R |
| From deep dark eyes that dreaming seem to be | D |
| There shine the strength and passion of the North | R |
Arthur Henry Adams
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Four Queens (maoriland) poem by Arthur Henry Adams
Best Poems of Arthur Henry Adams