April Byeway Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABBCDCDD BEBEEAFAFG EHEHHGGGGG BIBIIJBJBB GKGKKGGGGG BGBGGGLGLL| Friend whom I never saw yet dearest friend | A |
| Be with me travelling on the byeway now | B |
| In April's month and mood our steps shall bend | A |
| By the shut smithy with its penthouse brow | B |
| Armed round with many a felly and crackt plough | B |
| And we will mark in his white smock the mill | C |
| Standing aloof long numbed to any wind | D |
| That in his crannies mourns and craves him still | C |
| But now there is not any grain to grind | D |
| And even the master lies too deep for winds to find | D |
| - | |
| Grieve not at these for there are mills amain | B |
| With lusty sails that leap and drop away | E |
| On further knolls and lads to fetch the grain | B |
| The ash spit wickets on the green betray | E |
| New games begun and old ones put away | E |
| Let us fare on dead friend O deathless friend | A |
| Where under his old hat as green as moss | F |
| The hedger chops and finds new gaps to mend | A |
| And on his bonfires burns the thorns and dross | F |
| And hums a hymn the best thinks he that ever was | G |
| - | |
| There the grey guinea fowl stands in the way | E |
| The young black heifer and the raw ribbed mare | H |
| And scorn to move for tumbril or for dray | E |
| And feel themselves as good as farmers there | H |
| From the young corn the prick eared leverets stare | H |
| At strangers come to spy the land small sirs | G |
| We bring less danger than the very breeze | G |
| Who in great zig zag blows the bee and whirs | G |
| In bluebell shadow down the bright green leas | G |
| From whom in frolic fit the chopt straw darts and flees | G |
| - | |
| The cornel steepling up in white shall know | B |
| The two friends passing by and poplar smile | I |
| All gold within the church top fowl shall glow | B |
| To lure us on and we shall rest awhile | I |
| Where the wild apple blooms above the stile | I |
| The yellow frog beneath blinks up half bold | J |
| Then scares himself into the deeper green | B |
| And thus spring was for you in days of old | J |
| And thus will be when I too walk unseen | B |
| By one that thinks me friend the best that there has been | B |
| - | |
| All our lone journey laughs for joy the hours | G |
| Like honey bees go home in new found light | K |
| Past the cow pond amazed with twinkling flowers | G |
| And antique chalk pit newly delved to white | K |
| Or idle snow plough nearly hid from sight | K |
| The blackbird sings us home on a sudden peers | G |
| The round tower hung with ivy's blackened chains | G |
| Then past the little green the byeway veers | G |
| The mill sweeps torn the forge with cobwebbed panes | G |
| That have so many years looked out across the plains | G |
| - | |
| But the old forge and mill are shut and done | B |
| The tower is crumbling down stone by stone falls | G |
| An ague doubt comes creeping in the sun | B |
| The sun himself shudders the day appals | G |
| The concourse of a thousand tempests sprawls | G |
| Over the blue lipped lakes and maddening groves | G |
| Like agonies of gods the clouds are whirled | L |
| The stormwind like the demon huntsman roves | G |
| Still stands my friend though all's to chaos hurled | L |
| The unseen friend the one last friend in all the world | L |
Edmund Blunden
(1)
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