The Child Of The Islands - Winter Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCCDCEEA FGHGGIGIIA JKJKKLKLLM NLNLLMLMMM OPOPPQPQQM RSRSSTSTTM LULUHLULLM VWVXXLXLLX YZYZZA2ZA2A2X B2C2B2C2C2D2C2E2F2X LG2LD2G2H2D2 H2X XI2XJ2I2LK2LLX LXLXXQXQQM ZL2ZL2L2M2L2M2M2M LN2LN2N2E2O2E2E2M MP2MP2P2E2P2E2E2M E2Q2E2Q2Q2LQ2 LM E2E2E2E2E2E2E2E2E2X HLI | A |
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ERE the Night cometh On how many graves | B |
Rests at this hour their first cold winter's snow | C |
Wild o'er the earth the sleety tempest raves | B |
Silent our Lost Ones slumber on below | C |
Never to share again the genial glow | C |
Of Christmas gladness round the circled hearth | D |
Never returning festivals to know | C |
Or holidays that mark some loved one's birth | E |
Or children's joyous songs and loud delighted mirth | E |
II | A |
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The frozen tombs are sheeted with one pall | F |
One shroud for every churchyard crisp and bright | G |
One foldless mantle softly covering all | H |
With its unwrinkled width of spotless white | G |
There through the grey dim day and starlit night | G |
It rests on rich and poor and young and old | I |
Veiling dear eyes whose warm homne cheering light | G |
Our pining hearts can never more behold | I |
With an unlifting veil that falleth blank and cold | I |
III | A |
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The Spring shall melt that snow but kindly eyes | J |
Return not with the Sun's returning powers | K |
Nor to the clay cold cheek that buried lies | J |
The living blooms that flush perennial flowers | K |
Nor with the song birds vocal in the bowers | K |
The sweet familiar tones In silence drear | L |
We pass our days and oft in midnight hours | K |
Call madly on their names who cannot hear | L |
Names graven on the tombs of the departed year | L |
IV | M |
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There lies the tender Mother in whose heart | N |
So many claimed an interest and a share | L |
Humbly and piously she did her part | N |
In every task of love and household care | L |
And mournfully with sad abstracted air | L |
The Father Widower on his Christmas Eve | M |
Strokes down his youngest child's long silken hair | L |
And as the gathering sobs his bosom heave | M |
Goes from that orphaned group unseen to weep and grieve | M |
V | M |
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Feeling his loneliness the more this day | O |
Because SHE kept it with such gentle joy | P |
Scarce can he brook to see his children play | O |
Remembering how her love it did employ | P |
To choose each glittering gift and welcome toy | P |
His little timid girl so slight of limb | Q |
His fearless glorious merry hearted boy | P |
They coax him to their sports nor know how dim | Q |
The Christmas taper's light must burn henceforth for him | Q |
VI | M |
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Ah when these two are wrapt in peaceful sleep | R |
His worn eyes on the sinking embers set | S |
A Vigil to her Memory shall keep | R |
Her bridal blush when first his love she met | S |
Her dying words of meek and fond regret | S |
Her tearful thanks for all his kindness past | T |
These shall return to him while linger yet | S |
The last days of the year that year the last | T |
Upon whose circling hours her sunny smile was cast | T |
VII | M |
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Life's Dial now shows blank for want of HER | L |
There shall be holiday and festival | U |
But each his mourning heart shall only stir | L |
With repetitions of her funeral | U |
Quenched is the happy light that used to fall | H |
On common things and bid them lustre borrow | L |
No more the daily air grows musical | U |
Echoing her soft good night and glad good morrow | L |
Under the snow she lies and he must grieve down sorrow | L |
VIII | M |
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And learn how Death can hallow trivial things | V |
How the eyes fill with melancholy tears | W |
When some chance voice a common ballad sings | V |
The Loved sang too in well remembered years | X |
How strangely blank the beaten track appears | X |
Which led them to the threshold of our door | L |
And how old books some pencilled word endears | X |
Faint tracery where our dreaming hearts explore | L |
Their vanished thoughts whose souls commune with us no more | L |
IX | X |
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Under the snow she lies And there lies too | Y |
The young fair blossom neither Wife nor Bride | Z |
Whose Child like beauty no man yet might woo | Y |
Dwelling in shadow by her parent's side | Z |
Like a fresh rosebud which the green leaves hide | Z |
Calm as the light that fades along the West | A2 |
When not a ripple stirs the azure tide | Z |
She sank to Death and Heaven knows which is best | A2 |
The Matron's task fulfilled or Virgin's spotless rest | A2 |
X | X |
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A quiet rest it is though o'er that form | B2 |
We wept because our human love was weak | C2 |
Our Dove's white wings are folded from the storm | B2 |
Tears cannot stain those eyelids pure and meek | C2 |
And pale for ever is the marble cheek | C2 |
Where in her life the shy quick gushing blood | D2 |
Was wont with roseate eloquence to speak | C2 |
Ebbing and flowing with each varying mood | E2 |
Of her young timid heart so innocently good | F2 |
XI | X |
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And near her sleeps the old grey headed Sire | L |
Whose faded eyes in dying prayer uplifted | G2 |
Taught them the TRUTH who saw him thus expire | L |
Although not eloquent or greatly gifted | D2 |
Because they saw the winnowing fan that sifted | G2 |
Chaff from the grain disturbed not his high Trust | H2 |
In the dark storm Hope's anchor never drifted | D2 |
The dread funereal sentence 'Dust to Dust ' | - |
No terror held for him who slumbers with the Just | H2 |
XII | X |
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There too is laid the son of many vows | X |
The stately heir the treasure of his home | I2 |
His early death hath saddened noble brows | X |
Yet to grieved hearts doth consolation come | J2 |
Where shall they find though through the world they roam | I2 |
A star as perfect and as radiant clear | L |
Like Ormonde's Ossory in his early doom | K2 |
The throb of triumph checks the rising tear | L |
No living son can be their dead Son's proud compeer | L |
XIII | X |
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HE was not called to leave temptations hollow | L |
And orgies wild and bacchanalian nights | X |
Where vice led on his spirit scorned to follow | L |
His soul self exiled from all low delights | X |
Mastered the strength of sensual appetites | X |
Great plans good thoughts alone had power to move him | Q |
Holy Ambition such as Heaven requites | X |
His heart as they best know who used to love him | Q |
Was young and warm but pure as the white snow above him | Q |
XIV | M |
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He sleeps And she his young betroth d bride | Z |
Sleeps too her beauty hid in winding sheet | L2 |
The blind tears freely shed for both are dried | Z |
And round their silent graves the mourner's feet | L2 |
Have ceased to echo but their souls shall meet | L2 |
In the far world where no sad burial chime | M2 |
Knells for departed life but endless sweet | L2 |
In purity and love and joy sublime | M2 |
Eternal Hope survives all past decays of Time | M2 |
XV | M |
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And there rests One whom none on earth remember | L |
Except that heart whose fond life fed its own | N2 |
The cherished babe who through this bleak December | L |
Far from the Mother's bosom lieth lone | N2 |
Where the cold North wind makes its wintry moan | N2 |
A flower whose beauty cannot be renewed | E2 |
A bird whose song beyond the cloud is gone | O2 |
A child whose empty cradle is bedewed | E2 |
By bitter falling tears in hours of solitude | E2 |
XVI | M |
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Ah how can Death untwist the cord of Love | M |
Which bid those parted lives together cling | P2 |
Prest to the bosom of that brooding Dove | M |
Into those infant eyes would softly spring | P2 |
A sense of happiness and cherishing | P2 |
The tender lips knew no completed word | E2 |
The small feet could not run for tottering | P2 |
But a glad silent smile the red mouth stirred | E2 |
And murmurs of delight whene'er her name was heard | E2 |
XVII | M |
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Oh Darling since all life for death is moulded | E2 |
And every cradled head some tomb must fill | Q2 |
A little sooner only hast thou folded | E2 |
Thy helpless hands that struggled and are still | Q2 |
A little sooner thy Creator's will | Q2 |
Hath called thee to the Life that shall endure | L |
And in that Heaven his gathered saints shall fill | Q2 |
Hath 'made thy calling and election sure ' | - |
His work in thee being done was thy death premature | L |
XVIII | M |
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Baptised and so from sin innate reclaimed | E2 |
Pure from impure Redemption's forfeit paid | E2 |
Too young to be for wilful errors blamed | E2 |
Thy Angel little Child so lowly laid | E2 |
For ever looketh upward undismayed | E2 |
No earthly trespass clouding Heaven's clear light | E2 |
Casts the Great Glory into dreadful shade | E2 |
We weep for thee by day we weep by night | E2 |
Whilst thou beholdest GOD with glad enraptured sight | E2 |
XIX | X |
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Whom call we prematurely summoned All | H |
In whom some gleams of quivering sense r | L |
Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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