The Leaning Elm Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCCDDEEFFGH IIJKLMNMNOOPPQQQQRRE ESSTTBSSUU VVSSWWJXJXSSKK| Before my window in days of winter hoar | A |
| Huddled a mournful wood | B |
| Smooth pillars of beech domed chestnut sycamore | A |
| In stony sleep they stood | B |
| But you unhappy elm the angry west | C |
| Had chosen from the rest | C |
| Flung broken on your brothers' branches bare | D |
| And left you leaning there | D |
| So dead that when the breath of winter cast | E |
| Wild snow upon the blast | E |
| The other living branches downward bowed | F |
| Shook free their crystal shroud | F |
| And shed upon your blackened trunk beneath | G |
| Their livery of death | H |
| - | |
| On windless nights between the beechen bars | I |
| I watched cold stars | I |
| Throb whitely in the sky and dreamily | J |
| Wondered if any life lay locked in thee | K |
| If still the hidden sap secretly moved | L |
| As water in the icy winterbourne | M |
| Floweth unheard | N |
| And half I pitied you your trance forlorn | M |
| You could not hear I thought the voice of any bird | N |
| The shadowy cries of bats in dim twilight | O |
| Or cool voices of owls crying by night | O |
| Hunting by night under the horn d moon | P |
| Yet half I envied you your wintry swoon | P |
| Till on this morning mild the sun new risen | Q |
| Steals from his misty prison | Q |
| The frozen fallows glow the black trees shaken | Q |
| In a clear flood of sunlight vibrating awaken | Q |
| And lo your ravaged bole beyond belief | R |
| Slenderly fledged anew with tender leaf | R |
| As pale as those twin vanes that break at last | E |
| In a tiny fan above the black beech mast | E |
| Where no blade springeth green | S |
| But pallid bells of the shy helleborine | S |
| What is this ecstasy that overwhelms | T |
| The dreaming earth See the embrown d elms | T |
| Crowding purple distances warm the depths of the wood | B |
| A new born wind tosses their tassels brown | S |
| His white clouds dapple the down | S |
| Into a green flame bursting the hedgerows stand | U |
| Soon with banners flying Spring will walk the land | U |
| - | |
| There is no day for thee my soul like this | V |
| No spring of lovely words Nay even the kiss | V |
| Of mortal love that maketh man divine | S |
| This light cannot outshine | S |
| Nay even poets they whose frail hands catch | W |
| The shadow of vanishing beauty may not match | W |
| This leafy ecstasy Sweet words may cull | J |
| Such magical beauty as time may not destroy | X |
| But we alas are not more beautiful | J |
| We cannot flower in beauty as in joy | X |
| We sing our mus d words are sped and then | S |
| Poets are only men | S |
| Who age and toil and sicken This maim'd tree | K |
| May stand in leaf when I have ceased to be | K |
Francis Brett Young
(1)
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About The Leaning Elm
The Leaning Elm is a poem by Francis Brett Young. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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