The Flood Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBBDEDEFGFHH BBDIDJIJBKBKJJ DGDHDJDJLJLJLL| On Lolham Brigs in wild and lonely mood | A |
| I've seen the winter floods their gambols play | B |
| Through each old arch that trembled while I stood | C |
| Bent o'er its wall to watch the dashing spray | B |
| As their old stations would be washed away | B |
| Crash came the ice against the jambs and then | D |
| A shudder jarred the arches yet once more | E |
| It breasted raving waves and stood agen | D |
| To wait the shock as stubborn as before | E |
| White foam brown crested with the russet soil | F |
| As washed from new plough lands would dart beneath | G |
| Then round and round a thousand eddies boil | F |
| On tother side then pause as if for breath | H |
| One minute and engulphed like life in death | H |
| - | |
| Whose wrecky stains dart on the floods away | B |
| More swift than shadows in a stormy day | B |
| Straws trail and turn and steady all in vain | D |
| The engulfing arches shoot them quickly through | I |
| The feather dances flutters and again | D |
| Darts through the deepest dangers still afloat | J |
| Seeming as faireys whisked it from the view | I |
| And danced it o'er the waves as pleasures boat | J |
| Light hearted as a thought in May | B |
| Trays uptorn bushes fence demolished rails | K |
| Loaded with weeds in sluggish motions stray | B |
| Like water monsters lost each winds and trails | K |
| Till near the arches then as in affright | J |
| It plunges reels and shudders out of sight | J |
| - | |
| Waves trough rebound and fury boil again | D |
| Like plunging monsters rising underneath | G |
| Who at the top curl up a shaggy main | D |
| A moment catching at a surer breath | H |
| Then plunging headlong down and down and on | D |
| Each following boil the shadow of the last | J |
| And other monsters rise when those are gone | D |
| Crest their fringed waves plunge onward and are past | J |
| The chill air comes around me ocean blea | L |
| From bank to bank the waterstrife is spread | J |
| Strange birds like snow spots o'er the huzzing sea | L |
| Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled | J |
| On roars the flood all restless to be free | L |
| Like trouble wandering to eternity | L |
John Clare
(1)
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