The Goat Paths Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBCACDCAC CCCCEE AFFFCCFF AFAAF AFFFCC CACFAF FFFF| The crooked paths go every way | A |
| Upon the hill they wind about | B |
| Through the heather in and out | B |
| Of the quiet sunniness | C |
| And there the goats day after day | A |
| Stray in sunny quietness | C |
| Cropping here and cropping there | D |
| As they pause and turn and pass | C |
| Now a bit of heather spray | A |
| Now a mouthful of the grass | C |
| - | |
| In the deeper sunniness | C |
| In the place where nothing stirs | C |
| Quietly in quietness | C |
| In the quiet of the furze | C |
| For a time they come and lie | E |
| Staring on the roving sky | E |
| - | |
| If you approach they run away | A |
| They leap and stare away they bound | F |
| With a sudden angry sound | F |
| To the sunny quietude | F |
| Crouching down where nothing stirs | C |
| In the silence of the furze | C |
| Crouching down again to brood | F |
| In the sunny solitude | F |
| - | |
| If I were as wise as they | A |
| I would stray apart and brood | F |
| I would beat a hidden way | A |
| Through the quiet heather spray | A |
| To a sunny solitude | F |
| - | |
| And should you come I'd run away | A |
| I would make an angry sound | F |
| I would stare and turn and bound | F |
| To the deeper quietude | F |
| To the place where nothing stirs | C |
| In the silence of the furze | C |
| - | |
| In that airy quietness | C |
| I would think as long as they | A |
| Through the quiet sunniness | C |
| I would stray away to brood | F |
| By a hidden beaten way | A |
| In the sunny solitude | F |
| - | |
| I would think until I found | F |
| Something I can never find | F |
| Something lying on the ground | F |
| In the bottom of my mind | F |
James Stephens
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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