In The Harbour: Elegiac Verse Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDE EEEE AFD AFE GFG GDH GIJFE GIK GLMNFDF EEO EEP EFQ ERF ENE GDE| I | A |
| Peradventure of old some bard in Ionian Islands | B |
| Walking alone by the sea hearing the wash of the waves | C |
| Learned the secret from them of the beautiful verse elegiac | D |
| Breathing into his song motion and sound of the sea | E |
| - | |
| For as the wave of the sea upheaving in long undulations | E |
| Plunges loud on the sands pauses and turns and retreats | E |
| So the Hexameter rising and singing with cadence sonorous | E |
| Falls and in refluent rhythm back the Pentameter flows | E |
| - | |
| II | A |
| Not in his youth alone but in age may the heart of the poet | F |
| Bloom into song as the gorse blossoms in autumn and spring | D |
| - | |
| III | A |
| Not in tenderness wanting yet rough are the rhymes of our poet | F |
| Though it be Jacob's voice Esau's alas are the hands | E |
| - | |
| IV | G |
| Let us be grateful to writers for what is left in the inkstand | F |
| When to leave off is an art only attained by the few | G |
| - | |
| V | G |
| How can the Three be One you ask me I answer by asking | D |
| Hail and snow and rain are they not three and yet one | H |
| - | |
| VI | G |
| By the mirage uplifted the land floats vague in the ether | I |
| Ships and the shadows of ships hang in the motionless air | J |
| So by the art of the poet our common life is uplifted | F |
| So transfigured the world floats in a luminous haze | E |
| - | |
| VII | G |
| Like a French poem is Life being only perfect in structure | I |
| When with the masculine rhymes mingled the feminine are | K |
| - | |
| VIII | G |
| Down from the mountain descends the brooklet rejoicing in | L |
| freedom | M |
| Little it dreams of the mill hid in the valley below | N |
| Glad with the joy of existence the child goes singing and | F |
| laughing | D |
| Little dreaming what toils lie in the future concealed | F |
| - | |
| IX | E |
| As the ink from our pen so flow our thoughts and our feelings | E |
| When we begin to write however sluggish before | O |
| - | |
| X | E |
| Like the Kingdom of Heaven the Fountain of Youth is within us | E |
| If we seek it elsewhere old shall we grow in the search | P |
| - | |
| XI | E |
| If you would hit the mark you must aim a little above it | F |
| Every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth | Q |
| - | |
| XII | E |
| Wisely the Hebrews admit no Present tense in their language | R |
| While we are speaking the word it is is already the Past | F |
| - | |
| XIII | E |
| In the twilight of age all things seem strange and phantasmal | N |
| As between daylight and dark ghost like the landscape appears | E |
| - | |
| XIV | G |
| Great is the art of beginning but greater the art is of ending | D |
| Many a poem is marred by a superfluous verse | E |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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