The Poppy Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDD EFFF GGFF AAHH FFGG FFI FFF JF G II IIKKL FFFF MMMM FFMM JJJJ MMF GGJJ GGJJJ NNOO OOFFSummer set lip to earth's bosom bare | A |
And left the flush'd print in a poppy there | A |
Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came | B |
And the fanning wind puff'd it to flapping flame | B |
- | |
With burnt mouth red like a lion's it drank | C |
The blood of the sun as he slaughter'd sank | C |
And dipp'd its cup in the purpurate shine | D |
When the eastern conduits ran with wine | D |
- | |
Till it grew lethargied with fierce bliss | E |
And hot as a swink egrave d gipsy is | F |
And drowsed in sleepy savageries | F |
With mouth wide a pout for a sultry kiss | F |
- | |
A child and man paced side by side | G |
Treading the skirts of eventide | G |
But between the clasp of his hand and hers | F |
Lay felt not twenty wither'd years | F |
- | |
She turn'd with the rout of her dusk South hair | A |
And saw the sleeping gipsy there | A |
And snatch'd and snapp'd it in swift child's whim | H |
With 'Keep it long as you live ' to him | H |
- | |
And his smile as nymphs from their laving meres | F |
Trembled up from a bath of tears | F |
And joy like a mew sea rock'd apart | G |
Toss'd on the wave of his troubled heart | G |
- | |
For he saw what she did not see | F |
That as kindled by its own fervency | F |
The verge shrivell'd inward smoulderingly | I |
- | |
And suddenly 'twixt his hand and hers | F |
He knew the twenty wither'd years | F |
No flower but twenty shrivell'd years | F |
- | |
'Was never such thing until this hour ' | - |
Low to his heart he said 'the flower | J |
Of sleep brings wakening to me | F |
And of oblivion memory ' | - |
- | |
'Was never this thing to me ' he said | G |
'Though with bruis egrave d poppies my feet are red ' | - |
And again to his own heart very low | I |
'O child I love for I love and know | I |
- | |
'But you who love nor know at all | I |
The diverse chambers in Love's guest hall | I |
Where some rise early few sit long | K |
In how differing accents hear the throng | K |
His great Pentecostal tongue | L |
- | |
'Who know not love from amity | F |
Nor my reported self from me | F |
A fair fit gift is this meseems | F |
You give this withering flower of dreams | F |
- | |
'O frankly fickle and fickly true | M |
Do you know what the days will do to you | M |
To your Love and you what the days will do | M |
O frankly fickle and fickly true | M |
- | |
'You have loved me Fair three lives or days | F |
'Twill pass with the passing of my face | F |
But where I go your face goes too | M |
To watch lest I play false to you | M |
- | |
'I am but my sweet your foster lover | J |
Knowing well when certain years are over | J |
You vanish from me to another | J |
Yet I know and love like the foster mother | J |
- | |
'So frankly fickle and fickly true | M |
For my brief life while I take from you | M |
This token fair and fit meseems | F |
For me this withering flower of dreams ' | - |
- | |
The sleep flower sways in the wheat its head | G |
Heavy with dreams as that with bread | G |
The goodly grain and the sun flush'd sleeper | J |
The reaper reaps and Time the reaper | J |
- | |
I hang 'mid men my needless head | G |
And my fruit is dreams as theirs is bread | G |
The goodly men and the sun hazed sleeper | J |
Time shall reap but after the reaper | J |
The world shall glean of me me the sleeper | J |
- | |
Love love your flower of wither'd dream | N |
In leav egrave d rhyme lies safe I deem | N |
Shelter'd and shut in a nook of rhyme | O |
From the reaper man and his reaper Time | O |
- | |
Love I fall into the claws of Time | O |
But lasts within a leav egrave d rhyme | O |
All that the world of me esteems | F |
My wither'd dreams my wither'd dreams | F |
Francis Thompson
(1)
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