Almon Keefer Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AA BCDDEE FFGGHHIIJJJ KKLLJJMMJJGGNOJJPPQQ JJRRBBSSTTUU VWWJJ JJJXS YTJJZZA2A2JJJ B2B2C2C2JJB2B2B2B2B2 B2D2D2E2E2 A2A2QQB2B2E2E2 JJB2B2A2A2E2E2 E2E2MMB2B2E2E2A | |
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Ah Almon Keefer what a boy you were | B |
With your back tilted hat and careless hair | C |
And open honest fresh fair face and eyes | D |
With their all varying looks of pleased surprise | D |
And joyous interest in flower and tree | E |
And poising humming bird and maundering bee | E |
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The fields and woods he knew the tireless tramp | F |
With gun and dog and the night fisher's camp | F |
No other boy save Bee Lineback had won | G |
Such brilliant mastery of rod and gun | G |
Even in his earliest childhood had he shown | H |
These traits that marked him as his father's own | H |
Dogs all paid Almon honor and bow wowed | I |
Allegiance let him come in any crowd | I |
Of rabbit hunting town boys even though | J |
His own dog 'Sleuth' rebuked their acting so | J |
With jealous snarls and growlings | J |
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But the best | K |
Of Almon's virtues leading all the rest | K |
Was his great love of books and skill as well | L |
In reading them aloud and by the spell | L |
Thereof enthralling his mute listeners as | J |
They grouped about him in the orchard grass | J |
Hinging their bare shins in the mottled shine | M |
And shade as they lay prone or stretched supine | M |
Beneath their favorite tree with dreamy eyes | J |
And Argo fandes voyaging the skies | J |
'Tales of the Ocean' was the name of one | G |
Old dog's eared book that was surpassed by none | G |
Of all the glorious list Its back was gone | N |
But its vitality went bravely on | O |
In such delicious tales of land and sea | J |
As may not ever perish utterly | J |
Of still more dubious caste 'Jack Sheppard' drew | P |
Full admiration and 'Dick Turpin ' too | P |
And painful as the fact is to convey | Q |
In certain lurid tales of their own day | Q |
These boys found thieving heroes and outlaws | J |
They hailed with equal fervor of applause | J |
'The League of the Miami' why the name | R |
Alone was fascinating is the same | R |
In memory this venerable hour | B |
Of moral wisdom shorn of all its power | B |
As it unblushingly reverts to when | S |
The old barn was 'the Cave ' and hears again | S |
The signal blown outside the buggy shed | T |
The drowsy guard within uplifts his head | T |
And '' Who goes there '' is called in bated breath | U |
The challenge answered in a hush of death | U |
'Sh ' Barney Gray '' And then '' What do you seek '' | - |
'' Stables of The League '' the voice comes spent and weak | V |
For ha the Law is on the 'Chieftain's' trail | W |
Tracked to his very lair Well what avail | W |
The 'secret entrance' opens closes So | J |
The 'Robber Captain' thus outwits his foe | J |
And safe once more within his 'cavern halls ' | - |
He shakes his clenched fist at the warped plank walls | J |
And mutters his defiance through the cracks | J |
At the balked Enemy's retreating backs | J |
As the loud horde flees pell mell down the lane | X |
And Almon Keefer is himself again | S |
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Excepting few they were not books indeed | Y |
Of deep import that Almon chose to read | T |
Less fact than fiction Much he favored those | J |
If not in poetry in hectic prose | J |
That made our native Indian a wild | Z |
Feathered and fine preened hero that a child | Z |
Could recommend as just about the thing | A2 |
To make a god of or at least a king | A2 |
Aside from Almon's own books two or three | J |
His store of lore The Township Library | J |
Supplied him weekly All the books with 'or's | J |
Sub titled lured him after 'Indian Wars ' | - |
And 'Life of Daniel Boone ' not to include | B2 |
Some few books spiced with humor 'Robin Hood' | B2 |
And rare 'Don Quixote ' And one time he took | C2 |
'Dadd's Cattle Doctor ' How he hugged the book | C2 |
And hurried homeward with internal glee | J |
And humorous spasms of expectancy | J |
All this confession as he promptly made | B2 |
It the day later writhing in the shade | B2 |
Of the old apple tree with Johnty and | B2 |
Bud Noey Bixler and The Hired Hand | B2 |
Was quite as funny as the book was not | B2 |
O Wonderland of wayward Childhood what | B2 |
An easy breezy realm of summer calm | D2 |
And dreamy gleam and gloom and bloom and balm | D2 |
Thou art The Lotus Land the poet sung | E2 |
It is the Child World while the heart beats young | E2 |
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While the heart beats young O the splendor of the Spring | A2 |
With all her dewy jewels on is not so fair a thing | A2 |
The fairest rarest morning of the blossom time of May | Q |
Is not so sweet a season as the season of to day | Q |
While Youth's diviner climate folds and holds us close caressed | B2 |
As we feel our mothers with us by the touch of face and breast | B2 |
Our bare feet in the meadows and our fancies up among | E2 |
The airy clouds of morning while the heart beats young | E2 |
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While the heart beats young and our pulses leap and dance | J |
With every day a holiday and life a glad romance | J |
We hear the birds with wonder and with wonder watch their flight | B2 |
Standing still the more enchanted both of hearing and of sight | B2 |
When they have vanished wholly for in fancy wing to wing | A2 |
We fly to Heaven with them and returning still we sing | A2 |
The praises of this lower Heaven with tireless voice and tongue | E2 |
Even as the Master sanctions while the heart beats young | E2 |
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While the heart beats young While the heart beats young | E2 |
O green and gold old Earth of ours with azure overhung | E2 |
And looped with rainbows grant us yet this grassy lap of thine | M |
We would be still thy children through the shower and the shine | M |
So pray we lisping whispering in childish love and trust | B2 |
With our beseeching hands and faces lifted from the dust | B2 |
By fervor of the poem all unwritten and unsung | E2 |
Thou givest us in answer while the heart beats young | E2 |
James Whitcomb Riley
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