Childhood. (from The Danish) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHG EBEB IJIJ KDL IMIM NONO| There was a time when I was very small | A |
| When my whole frame was but an ell in height | B |
| Sweetly as I recall it tears do fall | A |
| And therefore I recall it with delight | B |
| - | |
| I sported in my tender mother's arms | C |
| And rode a horseback on best father's knee | D |
| Alike were sorrows passions and alarms | C |
| And gold and Greek and love unknown to me | D |
| - | |
| Then seemed to me this world far less in size | E |
| Likewise it seemed to me less wicked far | F |
| Like points in heaven I saw the stars arise | E |
| And longed for wings that I might catch a star | F |
| - | |
| I saw the moon behind the island fade | G |
| And thought 'Oh were I on that island there | H |
| I could find out of what the moon is made | G |
| Find out how large it is how round how fair ' | - |
| - | |
| Wondering I saw God's sun through western skies | E |
| Sink in the ocean's golden lap at night | B |
| And yet upon the morrow early rise | E |
| And paint the eastern heaven with crimson light | B |
| - | |
| And thought of God the gracious Heavenly Father | I |
| Who made me and that lovely sun on high | J |
| And all those pearls of heaven thick strung together | I |
| Dropped clustering from his hand o'er all the sky | J |
| - | |
| With childish reverence my young lips did say | K |
| The prayer my pious mother taught to me | D |
| 'O gentle God oh let me strive alway | L |
| Still to be wise and good and follow Thee ' | - |
| - | |
| So prayed I for my father and my mother | I |
| And for my sister and for all the town | M |
| The king I knew not and the beggar brother | I |
| Who bent with age went sighing up and down | M |
| - | |
| They perished the blithe days of boyhood perished | N |
| And all the gladness all the peace I knew | O |
| Now have I but their memory fondly cherished | N |
| God may I never lose that too | O |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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