Cape Breton Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBCDEFGHIJKL MBNOPMQCR SMNTUVVWXXYZA2B2C2GD 2 ZE2F2G2WH2GDI2J2K2W F2L2M2N2A | |
the razorbill auks and the silly looking puffins all stand | B |
with their backs to the mainland | B |
in solemn uneven lines along the cliff's brown grass frayed edge | C |
while the few sheep pastured there go Baaa baaa | D |
Sometimes frightened by aeroplanes they stampede | E |
and fall over into the sea or onto the rocks | F |
The silken water is weaving and weaving | G |
disappearing under the mist equally in all directions | H |
lifted and penetrated now and then | I |
by one shag's dripping serpent neck | J |
and somewhere the mist incorporates the pulse | K |
rapid but unurgent of a motor boat | L |
- | |
The same mist hangs in thin layers | M |
among the valleys and gorges of the mainland | B |
like rotting snow ice sucked away | N |
almost to spirit the ghosts of glaciers drift | O |
among those folds and folds of fir spruce and hackmatack | P |
dull dead deep pea cock colors | M |
each riser distinguished from the next | Q |
by an irregular nervous saw tooth edge | C |
alike but certain as a stereoscopic view | R |
- | |
The wild road clambers along the brink of the coast | S |
On it stand occasional small yellow bulldozers | M |
but without their drivers because today is Sunday | N |
The little white churches have been dropped into the matted hills | T |
like lost quartz arrowheads | U |
The road appears to have been abandoned | V |
Whatever the landscape had of meaning appears to have been abandoned | V |
unless the road is holding it back in the interior | W |
where we cannot see | X |
where deep lakes are reputed to be | X |
and disused trails and mountains of rock | Y |
and miles of burnt forests standing in gray scratches | Z |
like the admirable scriptures made on stones by stones | A2 |
and these regions now have little to say for themselves | B2 |
except in thousands of light song sparrow songs floating upward | C2 |
freely dispassionately through the mist and meshing | G |
in brown wet fine torn fish nets | D2 |
- | |
A small bus comes along in up and down rushes | Z |
packed with people even to its step | E2 |
On weekdays with groceries spare automobile parts and pump parts | F2 |
but today only two preachers extra one carrying his frock coat on a | G2 |
hanger | W |
It passes the closed roadside stand the closed schoolhouse | H2 |
where today no flag is flying | G |
from the rough adzed pole topped with a white china doorknob | D |
It stops and a man carrying a bay gets off | I2 |
climbs over a stile and goes down through a small steep meadow | J2 |
which establishes its poverty in a snowfall of daisies | K2 |
to his invisible house beside the water | W |
- | |
The birds keep on singing a calf bawls the bus starts | F2 |
The thin mist follows | L2 |
the white mutations of its dream | M2 |
an ancient chill is rippling the dark brooks | N2 |
Elizabeth Bishop
(1)
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