A Greyport Legend Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABAAB BCBCDDB DEDEFFE GHGHAAH IJIJBKI ILILHHM| They ran through the streets of the seaport town | A |
| They peered from the decks of the ships that lay | B |
| The cold sea fog that came whitening down | A |
| Was never as cold or white as they | B |
| Ho Starbuck and Pinckney and Tenterden | A |
| Run for your shallops gather your men | A |
| Scatter your boats on the lower bay | B |
| - | |
| Good cause for fear In the thick mid day | B |
| The hulk that lay by the rotting pier | C |
| Filled with the children in happy play | B |
| Parted its moorings and drifted clear | C |
| Drifted clear beyond reach or call | D |
| Thirteen children they were in all | D |
| All adrift in the lower bay | B |
| - | |
| Said a hard faced skipper God help us all | D |
| She will not float till the turning tide | E |
| Said his wife My darling will hear MY call | D |
| Whether in sea or heaven she bide | E |
| And she lifted a quavering voice and high | F |
| Wild and strange as a sea bird's cry | F |
| Till they shuddered and wondered at her side | E |
| - | |
| The fog drove down on each laboring crew | G |
| Veiled each from each and the sky and shore | H |
| There was not a sound but the breath they drew | G |
| And the lap of water and creak of oar | H |
| And they felt the breath of the downs fresh blown | A |
| O'er leagues of clover and cold gray stone | A |
| But not from the lips that had gone before | H |
| - | |
| They came no more But they tell the tale | I |
| That when fogs are thick on the harbor reef | J |
| The mackerel fishers shorten sail | I |
| For the signal they know will bring relief | J |
| For the voices of children still at play | B |
| In a phantom hulk that drifts alway | K |
| Through channels whose waters never fail | I |
| - | |
| It is but a foolish shipman's tale | I |
| A theme for a poet's idle page | L |
| But still when the mists of Doubt prevail | I |
| And we lie becalmed by the shores of Age | L |
| We hear from the misty troubled shore | H |
| The voice of the children gone before | H |
| Drawing the soul to its anchorage | M |
Bret Harte
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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