Our Willie Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAACCBDDEFFEGGHIIJK LKLMCMCNNOPQORRSRS TUVTVUWUXIIYGGYZZA2B 2A2B2C2D2C2D2KE2E2KF 2G2F2G2H2H2H2CI2I2I2 J2J2B2B2CK2K2L2L2K2M 2M2N2N2E2E2M2E2O2P2Q 2ZZR2R2R2E2Q2S2Q2S2K KE2E2'T was merry Christmas when he came | A |
Our little boy beneath the sod | B |
And brighter burned the Christmas flame | A |
And merrier sped the Christmas game | A |
Because within the house there lay | C |
A shape as tiny as a fay | C |
The Christmas gift of God | B |
In wreaths and garlands on the walls | D |
The holly hung its ruby balls | D |
The mistletoe its pearls | E |
And a Christmas tree's fantastic fruits | F |
Woke laughter like a choir of flutes | F |
From happy boys and girls | E |
For the mirth which else had swelled as shrill | G |
As a school let loose to its errant will | G |
Was softened by the thought | H |
That in a dim hushed room above | I |
A mother's pains in a mother's love | I |
Were only just forgot | J |
The jest the tale the toast the glee | K |
All took a sober tone | L |
We spoke of the babe upstairs as we | K |
Held festival for him alone | L |
When the bells rang in the Christmas morn | M |
It scarcely seemed a sin to say | C |
That they rang because that babe was born | M |
Not less than for the sacred day | C |
Ah Christ forgive us for the crime | N |
Which drowned the memories of the time | N |
In a merely mortal bliss | O |
We owned the error when the mirth | P |
Of another Christmas lit the hearth | Q |
Of every home but this | O |
When in that lonely burial ground | R |
With every Christmas sight and sound | R |
Removed or shunned we kept | S |
A mournful Christmas by the mound | R |
Where little Willie slept | S |
- | |
Ah hapless mother darling wife | T |
I might say nothing more | U |
And the dull cold world would hold | V |
The story of that precious life | T |
As amply told | V |
Shall we shall you and I before | U |
That world's unsympathetic eyes | W |
Lay other relics from our store | U |
Of tender memories | X |
What could it know of the joy and love | I |
That throbbed and smiled and wept above | I |
An unresponsive thing | Y |
And who could share the ecstatic thrill | G |
With which we watched the upturned bill | G |
Of our bird at its living spring | Y |
Shall we tell how in the time gone by | Z |
Beneath all changes of the sky | Z |
And in an ordinary home | A2 |
Amid the city's din | B2 |
Life was to us a crystal dome | A2 |
Our babe the flame therein | B2 |
Ah this were jargon on the mart | C2 |
And though some gentle friend | D2 |
And many and many a suffering heart | C2 |
Would weep and comprehend | D2 |
Yet even these might fail to see | K |
What we saw daily in the child | E2 |
Not the mere creature undefiled | E2 |
But the winged cherub soon to be | K |
That wandering hand which seemed to reach | F2 |
At angel finger tips | G2 |
And that murmur like a mystic speech | F2 |
Upon the rosy lips | G2 |
That something in the serious face | H2 |
Holier than even its infant grace | H2 |
And that rapt gaze on empty space | H2 |
Which made us half believing say | C |
Ah little wide eyed seer who knows | I2 |
But that for you this chamber glows | I2 |
With stately shapes and solemn shows | I2 |
Which touched us too with vague alarms | J2 |
Lest in the circle of our arms | J2 |
We held a being less akin | B2 |
To his parents in a world of sin | B2 |
Than to beings not of clay | C |
How could we speak in human phrase | K2 |
Of such scarce earthly traits and ways | K2 |
What would not seem | L2 |
A doting dream | L2 |
In the creed of these sordid days | K2 |
No let us keep | M2 |
Deep deep | M2 |
In sorrowing heart and aching brain | N2 |
This story hidden with the pain | N2 |
Which since that blue October night | E2 |
When Willie vanished from our sight | E2 |
Must haunt us even in our sleep | M2 |
In the gloom of the chamber where he died | E2 |
And by that grave which through our care | O2 |
From Yule to Yule of every year | P2 |
Is made like Spring to bloom | Q2 |
And where at times we catch the sigh | Z |
As of an angel floating nigh | Z |
Who longs but has not power to tell | R2 |
That in that violet shrouded cell | R2 |
Lies nothing better than the shell | R2 |
Which he had cast aside | E2 |
By that sweet grave in that dark room | Q2 |
We may weave at will for each other's ear | S2 |
Of that life and that love and that early doom | Q2 |
The tale which is shadowed here | S2 |
To us alone it will always be | K |
As fresh as our own misery | K |
But enough alas for the world is said | E2 |
In the brief Here lieth of the dead | E2 |
Henry Timrod
(1)
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