Lily Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDED FGFGHIHI JKJKLLLL MNMNLOLO NPNPLNLN QRQRLGLG LSLSTUTU RVRVGWGW XLYLZSZS GA2GA2LTLT LB2LB2LC2LC2 GLGLLLLL THTHB2LB2L LD2LD2NZNZ E2F2E2F2NLNL G2H2G2H2GLGL I2J2NJ2LB2LB2 NK2NK2G2L2G2L2 E2NE2NM2M2N2M2 B2LNLLA2LA2 LNLNLLLL LO2LO2P2LP2L LLLLQ2J2Q2K2 LLLLR2S2R2S2 B2T2NT2I2LI2L G2U2NU2U2K2U2J2 LLLLGLGLI scorn the man a fool at most | A |
And ignorant and blind | B |
Who loves to go about and boast | A |
He understands mankind | B |
I thought I had that knowledge too | C |
And boasted it with pride | D |
But since I ve learned that human hearts | E |
Cannot be classified | D |
- | |
In days when I was young and wild | F |
I had no vanity | G |
I always thought when women smiled | F |
That they were fooling me | G |
I was content to let them fool | H |
And let them deem I cared | I |
For tutored in a narrow school | H |
I held myself prepared | I |
- | |
But Lily had a pretty face | J |
And great blue Irish eyes | K |
And she was fair as any race | J |
Beneath the Northern skies | K |
The sweetest voice I ever heard | L |
Although it was unschooled | L |
So for a season I preferred | L |
By Lily to be fooled | L |
- | |
A friend embittered all my life | M |
With careless words of his | N |
He said I d never win a wife | M |
With such an ugly phiz | N |
I laughed the loudest at the wit | L |
Though loud the laughter rung | O |
So be it to his credit writ | L |
He never knew it stung | O |
- | |
As far as human nature goes | N |
The cynic I would teach | P |
That fruit s not always sour to those | N |
For whom none hangs in reach | P |
I only gazed as captives might | L |
Gaze through their prison bars | N |
Fair women seemed to me as bright | L |
Though far away as stars | N |
- | |
And Lily was to me a star | Q |
As fair as those above | R |
As beautiful but just as far | Q |
From my revengeful love | R |
The love I bore was not exempt | L |
From hate if this might be | G |
I hated her for that contempt | L |
I thought she had for me | G |
- | |
The sour grapes are often sweet | L |
To lips that cannot touch | S |
And it is soothing to repeat | L |
It does not matter much | S |
But O to think that fruit so dear | T |
To me in manhood s prime | U |
Though seeming far was clustered near | T |
And red ripe all the time | U |
- | |
My fault perhaps in Heav n above | R |
May not be deemed a sin | V |
I never thought that she would love | R |
Or I d the power to win | V |
And even now it puzzles me | G |
The butt of station chaff | W |
For I was plain as man could be | G |
And awkward as a calf | W |
- | |
I would have liked to break the bow | X |
That Lily never bent | L |
I thought she d only laugh to know | Y |
How well her shafts were sent | L |
If my contempt had power to gall | Z |
Or careless sneers to touch | S |
The heart that loved me after all | Z |
She must have suffered much | S |
- | |
Ah I was blind and could not see | G |
The plain things in my way | A2 |
When Lily s mistress twitted me | G |
About the wedding day | A2 |
I answered with a careless word | L |
And half unconscious sneer | T |
I never thought that Lily heard | L |
Nor dreamed that she was near | T |
- | |
We talked of other things and joked | L |
Till tongues began to tire | B2 |
Then I and Lily s master smoked | L |
Our pipes beside the fire | B2 |
The day wore on and then she brought | L |
The kettle to the hob | C2 |
And as she turned to go I thought | L |
I heard a stifled sob | C2 |
- | |
I spoke she never answered me | G |
I sneered I ll not forget | L |
Above all things I hate to see | G |
A woman in a pet | L |
Those cruel words that were the last | L |
That Lily ever heard | L |
I ve heard them shrieking in the blast | L |
And twittered by the bird | L |
- | |
Deep in the creek that wandered near | T |
There lay a grassy pool | H |
Neath oaks that sighed through all the year | T |
And kept the water cool | H |
The stars that pierced the reedy bower | B2 |
Made water lilies bright | L |
And underneath her sister flower | B2 |
Our Lily slept that night | L |
- | |
She d brought a pole the pool to sound | L |
It must have tried her strength | D2 |
We found it lying on the ground | L |
And wet for half its length | D2 |
We found it there upon the grass | N |
But ah it was not all | Z |
An open prayer book lay alas | N |
Beside poor Lily s shawl | Z |
- | |
We drew her out and laid her down | E2 |
Upon a granite ledge | F2 |
The water from her dripping gown | E2 |
Went trickling o er the edge | F2 |
Like drops into a pool of fears | N |
I saw the crystals dart | L |
Or one by one like scalding tears | N |
That plash upon the heart | L |
- | |
The circles died upon the shore | G2 |
The frogs began to croak | H2 |
The wind that passed to list once more | G2 |
Went sighing through the oak | H2 |
The oak that seemed to say to me | G |
I think I hear it yet | L |
Above all things I hate to see | G |
A woman in a pet | L |
- | |
The blackest thoughts are swift to fill | I2 |
The evil minds of men | J2 |
I knew the meaning of the looks | N |
They bent upon me then | J2 |
And then I did as cowards do | L |
I vanished like a cur | B2 |
For many years I never knew | L |
Where they had buried her | B2 |
- | |
But drawn by that same power that brings | N |
The slayer to the slain | K2 |
Or driven like the bird that wings | N |
Against the storm in vain | K2 |
I journeyed from another shore | G2 |
Across the weary wave | L2 |
And wandered by the creek once more | G2 |
And sought for Lily s grave | L2 |
- | |
I rode across the ridges brown | E2 |
And through a rocky pass | N |
And took the track that led me down | E2 |
To great white flats of grass | N |
I passed the homestead s skeleton | M2 |
That rotted in the sun | M2 |
And by the broken stockyards on | N2 |
The long deserted run | M2 |
- | |
Whole beds of reeds were covered o er | B2 |
With coats of yellow mud | L |
And all along the creek I saw | N |
The traces of a flood | L |
I reached the place where Lily died | L |
The banks were washed away | A2 |
Before me on the other side | L |
There rose a wall of clay | A2 |
- | |
I saw a thing that seemed a weed | L |
Outgrowing from the face | N |
I stood and marvelled that a seed | L |
Had grown in such a place | N |
I climbed the bank and with a rod | L |
I pushed the weed about | L |
And from the dry and crumbling sod | L |
I saw a skull roll out | L |
- | |
I started back from where I stood | L |
For she was buried there | O2 |
I d seen the coffin s rotting wood | L |
The weed was Lily s hair | O2 |
They d laid her in the rushes dank | P2 |
Upon a sandy bend | L |
The floods had washed away the bank | P2 |
And reached the coffin s end | L |
- | |
Ah coward heart and conscience too | L |
Did I reclaim the dead | L |
Ah no I did as cowards do | L |
A second time I fled | L |
And still I see the flying form | Q2 |
I see myself again | J2 |
A madman riding through the storm | Q2 |
With terror in his brain | K2 |
- | |
That night the rain in torrents dashed | L |
The sky seemed flushed with blood | L |
And here and there the she oaks crashed | L |
Beneath the yellow flood | L |
And still I see the murderous sky | R2 |
That never seems to change | S2 |
And hear the flood go growling by | R2 |
That thundered from the range | S2 |
- | |
My inner sight as years went o er | B2 |
Grew sharp instead of dull | T2 |
And nearly every night I saw | N |
The coffin and the skull | T2 |
Three ghastly things unaltered still | I2 |
I knew would haunt my night | L |
I knew would fill my dreams until | I2 |
I buried them from sight | L |
- | |
I journeyed to the creek once more | G2 |
When five long years had flown | U2 |
And buried in the sand I saw | N |
A piece of fashioned stone | U2 |
And bit by bit and bone by bone | U2 |
In those long years of rain | K2 |
The cruel creek had claimed its own | U2 |
And buried it again | J2 |
- | |
I clambered down the bank and knelt | L |
And scraped away the sand | L |
And graven on the stone I felt | L |
Her name beneath my hand | L |
And in the she oak over me | G |
The wind was sneering yet | L |
Above all things I hate to see | G |
A woman in a pet | L |
Henry Lawson
(1)
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