The Mores Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCAADDEFGGHHEEII BBJJFFKKLJMMNNDDEECC KKFFFFGGOOCCFFLJPPFF FFDDQQRRSSTTUUDDVVWWFar spread the moorey ground a level scene | A |
Bespread with rush and one eternal green | A |
That never felt the rage of blundering plough | B |
Though centurys wreathed spring's blossoms on its brow | B |
Still meeting plains that stretched them far away | C |
In uncheckt shadows of green brown and grey | C |
Unbounded freedom ruled the wandering scene | A |
Nor fence of ownership crept in between | A |
To hide the prospect of the following eye | D |
Its only bondage was the circling sky | D |
One mighty flat undwarfed by bush and tree | E |
Spread its faint shadow of immensity | F |
And lost itself which seemed to eke its bounds | G |
In the blue mist the horizon's edge surrounds | G |
Now this sweet vision of my boyish hours | H |
Free as spring clouds and wild as summer flowers | H |
Is faded all a hope that blossomed free | E |
And hath been once no more shall ever be | E |
Inclosure came and trampled on the grave | I |
Of labour's rights and left the poor a slave | I |
And memory's pride ere want to wealth did bow | B |
Is both the shadow and the substance now | B |
The sheep and cows were free to range as then | J |
Where change might prompt nor felt the bonds of men | J |
Cows went and came with evening morn and night | F |
To the wild pasture as their common right | F |
And sheep unfolded with the rising sun | K |
Heard the swains shout and felt their freedom won | K |
Tracked the red fallow field and heath and plain | L |
Then met the brook and drank and roamed again | J |
The brook that dribbled on as clear as glass | M |
Beneath the roots they hid among the grass | M |
While the glad shepherd traced their tracks along | N |
Free as the lark and happy as her song | N |
But now all's fled and flats of many a dye | D |
That seemed to lengthen with the following eye | D |
Moors loosing from the sight far smooth and blea | E |
Where swopt the plover in its pleasure free | E |
Are vanished now with commons wild and gay | C |
As poet's visions of life's early day | C |
Mulberry bushes where the boy would run | K |
To fill his hands with fruit are grubbed and done | K |
And hedgrow briars flower lovers overjoyed | F |
Came and got flower pots these are all destroyed | F |
And sky bound mores in mangled garbs are left | F |
Like mighty giants of their limbs bereft | F |
Fence now meets fence in owners' little bounds | G |
Of field and meadow large as garden grounds | G |
In little parcels little minds to please | O |
With men and flocks imprisoned ill at ease | O |
Each little path that led its pleasant way | C |
As sweet as morning leading night astray | C |
Where little flowers bloomed round a varied host | F |
That travel felt delighted to be lost | F |
Nor grudged the steps that he had ta en as vain | L |
When right roads traced his journeys and again | J |
Nay on a broken tree he'd sit awhile | P |
To see the mores and fields and meadows smile | P |
Sometimes with cowslaps smothered then all white | F |
With daiseys then the summer's splendid sight | F |
Of cornfields crimson o'er the headache bloomd | F |
Like splendid armys for the battle plumed | F |
He gazed upon them with wild fancy's eye | D |
As fallen landscapes from an evening sky | D |
These paths are stopt the rude philistine's thrall | Q |
Is laid upon them and destroyed them all | Q |
Each little tyrant with his little sign | R |
Shows where man claims earth glows no more divine | R |
But paths to freedom and to childhood dear | S |
A board sticks up to notice 'no road here' | S |
And on the tree with ivy overhung | T |
The hated sign by vulgar taste is hung | T |
As tho' the very birds should learn to know | U |
When they go there they must no further go | U |
Thus with the poor scared freedom bade goodbye | D |
And much they feel it in the smothered sigh | D |
And birds and trees and flowers without a name | V |
All sighed when lawless law's enclosure came | V |
And dreams of plunder in such rebel schemes | W |
Have found too truly that they were but dreams | W |
John Clare
(1)
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