When Mother Combed My Hair Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD EEFFGGDD HHIIGGDD BBJJKLII| When Memory with gentle hand | A |
| Has led me to that foreign land | A |
| Of childhood days I long to be | B |
| Again the boy on bended knee | B |
| With head a bow and drowsy smile | C |
| Hid in a mother's lap the while | C |
| With tender touch and kindly care | D |
| She bends above and combs my hair | D |
| - | |
| Ere threats of Time or ghosts of cares | E |
| Had paled it to the hue it wears | E |
| Its tangled threads of amber light | F |
| Fell o'er a forehead fair and white | F |
| That only knew the light caress | G |
| Of loving hands or sudden press | G |
| Of kisses that were sifted there | D |
| The times when mother combed my hair | D |
| - | |
| But its last gleams of gold have slipped | H |
| Away and Sorrow's manuscript | H |
| Is fashioned of the snowy brow | I |
| So lined and underscored now | I |
| That you to see it scarce would guess | G |
| It e'er had felt the fond caress | G |
| Of loving lips or known the care | D |
| Of those dear hands that combed my hair | D |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| I am so tired Let me be | B |
| A moment at my mother's knee | B |
| One moment that I may forget | J |
| The trials waiting for me yet | J |
| One moment free from every pain | K |
| O Mother Comb my hair again | L |
| And I will oh so humbly bow | I |
| For I've a wife that combs it now | I |
James Whitcomb Riley
(1)
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