Littleholme Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTE UVWXY WZA2B2C2D2E2F2G2 H2I2J2K2JL2G2M2N2O2I 2P2OQ2EQ2Q2R2S2Q2ZT2 U2V2W2W2FQ2G2T2X2T2T 2To J S and A W S | A |
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In entering the town where the bright river | B |
Shrinks in its white stone bed old thoughts return | C |
Of how a quiet queen was nurtured here | D |
In the pale shadowed ruin on the height | E |
Of how when the hoar town was new and clean | F |
And had not grown a part of the gaunt fells | G |
That peered down into it the burghers wove | H |
On their small fireside looms green famous webs | I |
To cling on lissome tower dwelling ladies | J |
Who rode the hills swaying like green saplings | K |
Or mask tall hardy outlaws from pursuit | L |
Down beechen caverns and green under lights | M |
The rude vain looms are gone their beams are broken | N |
Their webs are now not seen but memory | O |
Still tangles in their mesh the dews they swept | P |
Like ruby sparks the lights they took the scents | Q |
They held the movement of their shapes and shades | R |
Of how the Border burners in cold dawns | S |
Of Summer hurried North up the high vales | T |
Past smoking farmsteads that had lit the night | E |
And surf of crowding cattle and of how | U |
A laughing prince of cursed impossible hopes | V |
Rode through the little streets Northward to battle | W |
And to defeat to be a fading thought | X |
Belated in dead mountains of romance | Y |
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A carver at his bench in a high gable | W |
Hears the sharp stream close under far below | Z |
Tinkle and rustle and no other sound | A2 |
Arises there to him to change his thoughts | B2 |
Of the changed silent town and the dead hands | C2 |
That made it and maintained it and the need | D2 |
For handiwork and happy work and work | E2 |
To use and ease the mind if such sweet towns | F2 |
Are to be built again or live again | G2 |
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The long town ends at Littleholme where the road | H2 |
Creeps up to hills of ancient looking stone | I2 |
Under the hanging eaves at Littleholme | J2 |
A latticed casement peeps above still gardens | K2 |
Into a crown of druid solemn trees | J |
Upon a knoll as high as a small house | L2 |
A shapely mound made so by nameless men | G2 |
Whose smoothing touch yet shows through the green hide | M2 |
When the slow moonlight drips from leaf to leaf | N2 |
Of that sharp plumy gloom and the hour comes | O2 |
When something seems awaited though unknown | I2 |
There should appear between those leaf thatched piles | P2 |
Fresh long limbed women striding easily | O |
And men whose hair plaits swing with their shagged arms | Q2 |
Returning in that equal echoed light | E |
Which does not measure time to the dear garths | Q2 |
That were their own when from white Norway coasts | Q2 |
They landed on a kind not distant shore | R2 |
And to the place where they have left their clothing | S2 |
Their long accustomed bones and hair and beds | Q2 |
That once were pleasant to them in that barrow | Z |
Their vanished children heaped above them dead | T2 |
For in the soundless stillness of hot noon | U2 |
The mind of man noticeable in that knoll | V2 |
Enhances its dark presence with a life | W2 |
More vivid and more actual than the life | W2 |
Of self sown trees and untouched earth It is seen | F |
What aspect this land had in those first eyes | Q2 |
In that regard the works of later men | G2 |
Fall in and sink like lime when it is slaked | T2 |
Staid youthful queen and weavers are unborn | X2 |
And the new crags the Northmen saw are set | T2 |
About an earth that has not been misused | T2 |
Gordon Bottomley
(1)
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