Mother And Daughter- Sonnet Sequence Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDBBCCB EEFGGFH AIHHIIHHI JHHHJH AIIIIIIII KJKJKJ JLLJJLLJ MIHMH HAGGAAGAG GJGJJG AHGGHHGGH EGEGEG AGNNGGNNG JOJ JO APLL PLLP JGJGGG JQRRQQRRQ SLLJJS J G TLLTULLT VG VN L L WGGWWGGW JJGJJG JGLLGGLLG GLLGGL JXLLJI | A |
Young laughters and my music Aye till now | B |
The voice can reach no blending minors near | C |
'Tis the bird's trill because the spring is here | D |
And spring means trilling on a blossomy bough | B |
'Tis the spring joy that has no why or how | B |
But sees the sun and hopes not nor can fear | C |
Spring is so sweet and spring seems all the year | C |
Dear voice the first come birds but trill as thou | B |
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Oh music of my heart be thus for long | E |
Too soon the spring bird learns the later song | E |
Too soon a sadder sweetness slays content | F |
Too soon There comes new light on onward day | G |
There comes new perfume o'er a rosier way | G |
Comes not again the young spring joy that went | F |
ROME November | H |
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II | A |
That she is beautiful is not delight | I |
As some think mothers joy by pride of her | H |
To witness questing eyes caught prisoner | H |
And hear her praised the livelong dancing night | I |
But the glad impulse that makes painters sight | I |
Bids me note her and grow the happier | H |
And love that finds me as her worshipper | H |
Reveals me each best loveliness aright | I |
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Oh goddess head Oh innocent brave eyes | J |
Oh curved and parted lips where smiles are rare | H |
And sweetness ever Oh smooth shadowy hair | H |
Gathered around the silence of her brow | H |
Child I'd needs love thy beauty stranger wise | J |
And oh the beauty of it being thou | H |
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III | A |
I watch the sweet grave face in timorous thought | I |
Lest I should see it dawn to some unrest | I |
And read that in her heart is youth's ill guest | I |
The querulous young sadness born of nought | I |
That wearies of the strife it has not fought | I |
And finds the life it has not had unblest | I |
And asks it knows not what that should be best | I |
And till Love come has never what it sought | I |
- | |
But she is still A full and crystal lake | K |
So gives it skies their passage to its deeps | J |
In an unruffled morn where no winds wake | K |
And strong and fretless 'stirs not nor yet sleeps | J |
My darling smiles and 'tis for gladness' sake | K |
She hears a woe 'tis simple tears she weeps | J |
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IV | - |
'Tis but a child The quiet Juno gaze | J |
Breaks at a trifle into mirth and glow | L |
Changed as a folded bud bursts into blow | L |
And she springs buoyant on some busy craze | J |
Or in the rhythm of her girlish plays | J |
Like light upon swift waves floats to and fro | L |
And whatsoe'er's her mirth needs me to know | L |
And keeps me young by her young innocent ways | J |
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Just now she and her kitten raced and sprang | M |
To catch the daisy ball she tossed about | I |
Then they grew grave and found a shady tree | H |
And kitty tried to see the notes she sang | M |
Now she flies hitherward 'Mother Quick Come see | H |
Two hyacinths in my garden almost out ' | - |
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V | H |
Last night the broad blue lightnings flamed the sky | A |
We watched our breaths caught as each burst its way | G |
And through its fire out leaped the sharp white ray | G |
And sudden dark re closed when it went by | A |
But she that where we are will needs be nigh | A |
Had tired with hunting orchids half the day | G |
Her father thought she called us he and I | A |
Half anxious reached the bedroom where she lay | G |
- | |
Oh lily face upon the whiteness blent | G |
How calm she lay in her unconscious grace | J |
A peal crashed on the silence ere we went | G |
She stirred in sleep a little changed her place | J |
'Mother ' she breathed a smile grew on her face | J |
'Mother ' my darling breathed and slept content | G |
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VI | A |
Sometimes as young things will she vexes me | H |
Wayward or too unheeding or too blind | G |
Like aimless birds that flying on a wind | G |
Strike slant against their own familiar tree | H |
Like venturous children pacing with the sea | H |
That turn but when the breaker spurts behind | G |
Outreaching them with spray she in such kind | G |
Is borne against some fault or does not flee | H |
- | |
And so may be I blame her for her wrong | E |
And she will frown and lightly plead her part | G |
And then I bid her go But 'tis not long | E |
Then comes she lip to ear and heart to heart | G |
And thus forgiven her love seems newly strong | E |
And oh my penitent how dear thou art | G |
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VII | A |
Her father lessons me I at times am hard | G |
Chiding a moment's fault as too grave ill | N |
And let some little blot my vision fill | N |
Scanning her with a narrow near regard | G |
True Love's unresting gaze is self debarred | G |
From all sweet ignorance and learns a skill | N |
Not painless of such signs as hurt love's will | N |
That would not have its prize one tittle marred | G |
- | |
Alas Who rears and loves a dawning rose | J |
Starts at a speck upon one petal's rim | O |
Who sees a dusk creep in the shrined pearl's glows | J |
Is ruined at once 'My jewel growing dim ' | - |
I watch one bud that on my bosom blows | J |
I watch one treasured pearl for me and him | O |
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VIII | A |
A little child she half defiant came | P |
Reasoning her case 'twas not so long ago | L |
'I cannot mind your scolding for I know | L |
However bad I were you'd love the same ' | - |
And I what countering answer could I frame | P |
'Twas true and true and God's self told her so | L |
One does but ask one's child to smile and grow | L |
And each rebuke has love for its right name | P |
- | |
And yet methinks sad mothers who for years | J |
Watching the child pass forth that was their boast | G |
Have counted all the footsteps by new fears | J |
Till even lost fears seem hopes whereof they're reft | G |
And of all mother's good love sole is left | G |
Is their Love Love or some remembered ghost | G |
- | |
IX | J |
Oh weary hearts Poor mothers that look back | Q |
So outcasts from the vale where they were born | R |
Turn on their road and with a joy forlorn | R |
See the far roofs below their arid track | Q |
So in chill buffets while the sea grows black | Q |
And windy skies once blue are tost and torn | R |
We are not yet forgetful of the morn | R |
And praise anew the sunshine that we lack | Q |
- | |
Oh sadder than pale sufferers by a tomb | S |
That say 'My dead is happier and is more' | L |
Are they who dare no 'is' but tell what's o'er | L |
Thus the frank childhood those the lovable ways | J |
Stirring the ashes of remembered days | J |
For yet some sparks to warm the livelong gloom | S |
- | |
X | J |
- | |
- | |
Love's Counterfeit | G |
- | |
Not Love not Love that worn and footsore thrall | T |
Who crowned with withered buds and leaves gone dry | L |
Plods in his chains to follow one passed by | L |
Guerdoned with only tears himself lets fall | T |
Love is asleep and smiling in his pall | U |
And this that wears his shape and will not die | L |
Was once his comrade shadow Memory | L |
His shadow that now stands for him in all | T |
- | |
And there are those who hurrying on past reach | V |
See the dim follower and laugh content | G |
'Lo Love pursues me go where'er I will ' | - |
Yet longer gazing some may half beseech | V |
'This must be Love that wears his features still | N |
Or else when was the moment that Love went ' | - |
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XI | L |
- | |
- | |
Love's Mourner | L |
- | |
'Tis men who say that through all hurt and pain | W |
The woman's love wife's mother's still will hold | G |
And breathes the sweeter and will more unfold | G |
For winds that tear it and the sorrowful rain | W |
So in a thousand voices has the strain | W |
Of this dear patient madness been retold | G |
That men call woman's love Ah they are bold | G |
Naming for love that grief which does remain | W |
- | |
Love faints that looks on baseness face to face | J |
Love pardons all but by the pardonings dies | J |
With a fresh wound of each pierced through the breast | G |
And there stand pityingly in Love's void place | J |
Kindness of household wont familiar wise | J |
And faith to Love faith to our dead at rest | G |
- | |
XII | J |
She has made me wayside posies here they stand | G |
Bringing fresh memories of where they grew | L |
As new come travellers from a world we knew | L |
Wake every while some image of their land | G |
So these whose buds our woodland breezes fanned | G |
Bring to my room the meadow where they blew | L |
The brook side cliff the elms where wood doves coo | L |
And every flower is dearer for her hand | G |
- | |
Oh blossoms of the paths she loves to tread | G |
Some grace of her is in all thoughts you bear | L |
For in my memories of your homes that were | L |
The old sweet loneliness they kept is fled | G |
And would I think it back I find instead | G |
A presence of my darling mingling there | L |
- | |
XIII | J |
My darling scarce thinks music sweet save mine | X |
'Tis that she does but love me more than hear | L |
She'll not believe my voice to stranger ear | L |
Is | J |
Augusta Davies Webster
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