The Well's Secret Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFGF HIHI JFKF LMLM| I KNEW it all my boyhood in a lonesome valley meadow | A |
| Like a dryad's mirror hidden by the wood's dim arches near | B |
| Its eye flashed back the sunshine and grew dark and sad with shadow | A |
| And I loved its truthful depths where every pebble lay so clear | B |
| - | |
| I scooped my hand and drank it and watched the sensate quiver | C |
| Of the rippling rings of silver as the beads of crystal fell | D |
| I pressed the richer grasses from its little trickling river | C |
| Till at last I knew as friends know every secret of the well | D |
| - | |
| But one day I stood beside it on a sudden unexpected | E |
| When the sun had crossed the valley and a shadow hid the place | F |
| And I looked in the dark water saw my pallid cheek reflected | G |
| And beside it looking upward met an evil reptile face | F |
| - | |
| Looking upward furtive startled at the silent swift intrusion | H |
| Then it darted toward the grasses and I saw not where it fled | I |
| But I knew its eyes were on me and the old time sweet illusion | H |
| Of the pure and perfect symbol I had cherished there was dead | I |
| - | |
| O the pain to know the perjury of seeming truth that blesses | J |
| My soul was seared like sin to see the falsehood of the place | F |
| And the innocence that mocked me while in dim unseen recesses | K |
| There were lurking fouler secrets than the furtive reptile face | F |
| - | |
| And since then O why the burden when the joyous faces greet me | L |
| With their eyes of limpid innocence and words devoid of art | M |
| I cannot trust their seeming but must ask what eyes would meet me | L |
| Could I look in sudden silence at the secrets of the heart | M |
John Boyle O'reilly
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