The Early Bird Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCC DEDEFG HIHIFG JKJLMM NOPOQQ RSRSDD TUTUVV WXWXJJ| A little bird sat on the edge of her nest | A |
| Her yellow beaks slept as sound as tops | B |
| Day long she had worked almost without rest | A |
| And had filled every one of their gibbous crops | B |
| Her own she had filled just over full | C |
| And she felt like a dead bird stuffed with wool | C |
| - | |
| Oh dear she sighed as she sat with her head | D |
| Sunk in her chest and no neck at all | E |
| Looking like an apple on a feather bed | D |
| Poked and rounded and fluffed to a ball | E |
| What's to be done if things don't reform | F |
| I cannot tell where there is one more worm | G |
| - | |
| I've had fifteen to day and the children five each | H |
| Besides a few flies and some very fat spiders | I |
| Who will dare say I don't do as I preach | H |
| I set an example to all providers | I |
| But what's the use We want a storm | F |
| I don't know where there's a single worm | G |
| - | |
| There's five in my crop chirped a wee wee bird | J |
| Who woke at the voice of his mother's pain | K |
| I know where there's five And with the word | J |
| He tucked in his head and went off again | L |
| The folly of childhood sighed his mother | M |
| Has always been my especial bother | M |
| - | |
| Careless the yellow beaks slept on | N |
| They never had heard of the bogy Tomorrow | O |
| The mother sat outside making her moan | P |
| I shall soon have to beg or steal or borrow | O |
| I have always to say the night before | Q |
| Where shall I find one red worm more | Q |
| - | |
| Her case was this she had gobbled too many | R |
| And sleepless had an attack she called foresight | S |
| A barn of crumbs if she knew but of any | R |
| Could she but get of the great worm store sight | S |
| The eastern sky was growing red | D |
| Ere she laid her wise beak in its feather bed | D |
| - | |
| Just then the fellow who knew of five | T |
| Nor troubled his sleep with anxious tricks | U |
| Woke and stirred and felt alive | T |
| To day he said I am up to six | U |
| But my mother feels in her lot the crook | V |
| What if I tried my own little hook | V |
| - | |
| When his mother awoke she winked her eyes | W |
| As if she had dreamed that she was a mole | X |
| Could she believe them What a huge prize | W |
| That child is dragging out of its hole | X |
| The fledgeling indeed had just caught his third | J |
| And here is a fable to catch the bird | J |
George Macdonald
(2)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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