Frank Denz Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDD EEFF GGDD HHII CCJJ KKBB LLEE MMAA NNOO PPJJ QQRR SSTT AAUUIn the roar of the storm in the wild bitter voice of the tempest whipped sea | A |
The cry of my darling my child comes ever and ever to me | A |
And I stand where the haggard faced wood stares down on a sinister shore | B |
But all that is left is the hood of the babe I can cherish no more | B |
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A little blue hood with the shawl of the girl that I took for my wife | C |
In a happy old season is all that remains of the light of my life | C |
The wail of a woman in pain and the sob of a smothering bird | D |
They come through the darkness again in the wind and the rain they are heard | D |
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Oh women and men who have known the perils of weather and wave | E |
It is sad that my sweet ones are blown under sea without shelter of grave | E |
I sob like a child in the night when the gale on the waters is loud | F |
My darlings went down in my sight with neither a coffin nor shroud | F |
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In the whistle of wind and the whirl of ominous fragments of wreck | G |
The wife with her poor little girl saw death on the lee of the deck | G |
But sirs she depended on me she trusted my comforting word | D |
She is down in the depths of the sea my love with her beautiful bird | D |
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In the boat I was ordered to go I was not more afraid than the rest | H |
But a husband will falter you know with the love of his life at his breast | H |
My captain was angry a space but soon he grew tender in tone | I |
Perhaps there had flashed by his face a wife and a child of his own | I |
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I was weak for some moments and cried but only one hope was in life | C |
The hood upon baby I tied I fastened the shawl on my wife | C |
The skipper took charge of the child he stuck to his word till the last | J |
But only this hood on the wild bitter shore of the sea had been cast | J |
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In the place of a coward who shook like a leaf in the quivering boat | K |
A seat by the rowlocks I took but the sea had me soon by the throat | K |
The surge gripped me fast by the neck in a ring and a roll and a roar | B |
I was cast like a piece of the wreck on a bleak beaten shelterless shore | B |
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And there were my darlings on board for the rest of that terrible day | L |
And I watched and I prayed to the Lord as never before I could pray | L |
The windy hills stared at the black heavy clouds coming over the wave | E |
My girl was expecting me back but where was my power to save | E |
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Ah where was my power when Death was glaring at me from the reef | M |
I cried till I gasped for my breath aloof with a maddening grief | M |
We couldn't get back to the deck I wanted to go but the sea | A |
Dashed over the sides of the wreck and carried my darling from me | A |
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Oh girl that I took by the hand to the altar two summers ago | N |
I would you were buried on land my dear it would comfort me so | N |
I would you were sleeping where grows the grass and the musical reed | O |
For how can you find a repose in the toss of the tangle and weed | O |
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The night sped along and I strained to the shadow and saw to the end | P |
My captain and bird he remained to the death a superlative friend | P |
In the face of the hurricane wild he clung with the babe to the mast | J |
To the last he was true to my child he was true to my child to the last | J |
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The wind like a life without home comes mocking at door and at pane | Q |
In the time of the cry of the foam in the season of thunder and rain | Q |
And dreaming I start in the bed and feel for my little one's brow | R |
But lost is the beautiful head the cradle is tenantless now | R |
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My home was all morning and glow when wife and her baby were there | S |
But ah it is saddened you know by dresses my girl used to wear | S |
I cannot re enter the door its threshold can never be crossed | T |
For fear I should see on the floor the shoes of the child I have lost | T |
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There were three of us once in the world but two are deep down in the sea | A |
Where waif and where tangle are hurled the two that were portions of me | A |
They are far from me now but I hear when hushed are the night and the tide | U |
The voice of my little one near the step of my wife by my side | U |
Henry Kendall
(1)
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