A Newport Romance Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCB EFEF AAAA ABAB GBGB AAAA ABAB HIHI GJGJ AAAA AAAA AAAA KJKJ LHMN BABA OPOP AQAQ BABA| They say that she died of a broken heart | A |
| I tell the tale as 'twas told to me | B |
| But her spirit lives and her soul is part | A |
| Of this sad old house by the sea | B |
| - | |
| Her lover was fickle and fine and French | C |
| It was nearly a hundred years ago | D |
| When he sailed away from her arms poor wench | C |
| With the Admiral Rochambeau | B |
| - | |
| I marvel much what periwigged phrase | E |
| Won the heart of this sentimental Quaker | F |
| At what gold laced speech of those modish days | E |
| She listened the mischief take her | F |
| - | |
| But she kept the posies of mignonette | A |
| That he gave and ever as their bloom failed | A |
| And faded though with her tears still wet | A |
| Her youth with their own exhaled | A |
| - | |
| Till one night when the sea fog wrapped a shroud | A |
| Round spar and spire and tarn and tree | B |
| Her soul went up on that lifted cloud | A |
| From this sad old house by the sea | B |
| - | |
| And ever since then when the clock strikes two | G |
| She walks unbidden from room to room | B |
| And the air is filled that she passes through | G |
| With a subtle sad perfume | B |
| - | |
| The delicate odor of mignonette | A |
| The ghost of a dead and gone bouquet | A |
| Is all that tells of her story yet | A |
| Could she think of a sweeter way | A |
| - | |
| I sit in the sad old house to night | A |
| Myself a ghost from a farther sea | B |
| And I trust that this Quaker woman might | A |
| In courtesy visit me | B |
| - | |
| For the laugh is fled from porch and lawn | H |
| And the bugle died from the fort on the hill | I |
| And the twitter of girls on the stairs is gone | H |
| And the grand piano is still | I |
| - | |
| Somewhere in the darkness a clock strikes two | G |
| And there is no sound in the sad old house | J |
| But the long veranda dripping with dew | G |
| And in the wainscot a mouse | J |
| - | |
| The light of my study lamp streams out | A |
| From the library door but has gone astray | A |
| In the depths of the darkened hall Small doubt | A |
| But the Quakeress knows the way | A |
| - | |
| Was it the trick of a sense o'erwrought | A |
| With outward watching and inward fret | A |
| But I swear that the air just now was fraught | A |
| With the odor of mignonette | A |
| - | |
| I open the window and seem almost | A |
| So still lies the ocean to hear the beat | A |
| Of its Great Gulf artery off the coast | A |
| And to bask in its tropic heat | A |
| - | |
| In my neighbor's windows the gas lights flare | K |
| As the dancers swing in a waltz of Strauss | J |
| And I wonder now could I fit that air | K |
| To the song of this sad old house | J |
| - | |
| And no odor of mignonette there is | L |
| But the breath of morn on the dewy lawn | H |
| And mayhap from causes as slight as this | M |
| The quaint old legend is born | N |
| - | |
| But the soul of that subtle sad perfume | B |
| As the spiced embalmings they say outlast | A |
| The mummy laid in his rocky tomb | B |
| Awakens my buried past | A |
| - | |
| And I think of the passion that shook my youth | O |
| Of its aimless loves and its idle pains | P |
| And am thankful now for the certain truth | O |
| That only the sweet remains | P |
| - | |
| And I hear no rustle of stiff brocade | A |
| And I see no face at my library door | Q |
| For now that the ghosts of my heart are laid | A |
| She is viewless for evermore | Q |
| - | |
| But whether she came as a faint perfume | B |
| Or whether a spirit in stole of white | A |
| I feel as I pass from the darkened room | B |
| She has been with my soul to night | A |
Bret Harte
(1)
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About A Newport Romance
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