From My Arm-chair Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B CCDD EEBB FFGG HHII JJKK LLMM NNFF OOPP QQHH BBRR SSTT UUEE| TO THE CHILDREN OF CAMBRIDGE | A |
| - | |
| Who presented to me on my Seventy second Birth day February this Chair made from the Wood of the Village Blacksmith's Chestnut Tree | B |
| - | |
| Am I a king that I should call my own | C |
| This splendid ebon throne | C |
| Or by what reason or what right divine | D |
| Can I proclaim it mine | D |
| - | |
| Only perhaps by right divine of song | E |
| It may to me belong | E |
| Only because the spreading chestnut tree | B |
| Of old was sung by me | B |
| - | |
| Well I remember it in all its prime | F |
| When in the summer time | F |
| The affluent foliage of its branches made | G |
| A cavern of cool shade | G |
| - | |
| There by the blacksmith's forge beside the street | H |
| Its blossoms white and sweet | H |
| Enticed the bees until it seemed alive | I |
| And murmured like a hive | I |
| - | |
| And when the winds of autumn with a shout | J |
| Tossed its great arms about | J |
| The shining chestnuts bursting from the sheath | K |
| Dropped to the ground beneath | K |
| - | |
| And now some fragments of its branches bare | L |
| Shaped as a stately chair | L |
| Have by my hearthstone found a home at last | M |
| And whisper of the past | M |
| - | |
| The Danish king could not in all his pride | N |
| Repel the ocean tide | N |
| But seated in this chair I can in rhyme | F |
| Roll back the tide of Time | F |
| - | |
| I see again as one in vision sees | O |
| The blossoms and the bees | O |
| And hear the children's voices shout and call | P |
| And the brown chestnuts fall | P |
| - | |
| I see the smithy with its fires aglow | Q |
| I hear the bellows blow | Q |
| And the shrill hammers on the anvil beat | H |
| The iron white with heat | H |
| - | |
| And thus dear children have ye made for me | B |
| This day a jubilee | B |
| And to my more than three score years and ten | R |
| Brought back my youth again | R |
| - | |
| The heart hath its own memory like the mind | S |
| And in it are enshrined | S |
| The precious keepsakes into which is wrought | T |
| The giver's loving thought | T |
| - | |
| Only your love and your remembrance could | U |
| Give life to this dead wood | U |
| And make these branches leafless now so long | E |
| Blossom again in song | E |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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