Merrill's Garden Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD BEBE FGFG HIJK BLBL MNMO BBBB PJPJ LQLQ RHRH SBSB| There is a garden where the seeded stems of thin long grass are bowed | A |
| Beneath July's slow rains and heat and tired children's trailing feet | B |
| And the trees' neglected branches droop and make a cloud beneath the cloud | A |
| And in that dark the crimson dew of raspberries shines more sweet than sweet | B |
| - | |
| The flower of the tall acacia's gone the acacia's flower is white no more | C |
| The aspen lifts his pithless arms the aspen leaves are close and still | D |
| The wind that tossed the clouds along gray clouds and white like feathers bore | C |
| Lets even a feather faintly fall and smoke spread hugely where it will | D |
| - | |
| But though the acacia's flower is gone and raspberries bear bright fruit untasted | B |
| Beauty lives there oh rich and rare past the sum of eager June | E |
| The lime tree's pyramid of flower and leaf and yellow flower unwasted | B |
| Rises at eve and bars the breast wild heaving of the timid moon | E |
| - | |
| Now the tall pear trees unrebuked lift their green fingers to the sky | F |
| Their lower boughs are crossed like arms of templars in long stony sleep | G |
| Their arms are crossed as though the wind returning from wild war on high | F |
| Had touched them with an angry breath or whispered from his cavern deep | G |
| - | |
| A foxglove lifts her bells and bells silent above the singing grass | H |
| Still the old marigold her light sprinkles like riches to the poor | I |
| Snapdragon still his changeling blossom shakes with the burden of the bees | J |
| And the strong bindweed creeps and winds and springs on high a conqueror | K |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Would now her eyes grieve to behold snapdragon foxglove marigold | B |
| Daily diminish in their sweet and bindweed wreathing over all | L |
| Weed and grass and weed and grass friendless melancholy cold | B |
| Wreathing the earth like wreathing snow from bare wall to low greening wall | L |
| - | |
| Old were her eyes that lingered on old trees and grass and flowers trim | M |
| She smelt the ripe pears when they drooped and fell and broke upon the path | N |
| Old were her thoughts of things of old her present thoughts were few and dim | M |
| Her eyes saw not the things she saw she listened to no living breath | O |
| - | |
| Her youth and prime and autumn time bloomed in her thought all light and sweet | B |
| No wallflower more of sweet could hold of sunny light no marigold | B |
| Fruit on her mind's boughs ripened full in summer's and calm autumn's heat | B |
| Then fell for there came none to pick but winter came and she was old | B |
| - | |
| Now if her sons come they will find not her her empty garden only | P |
| The wallflower done and snapdragon still swinging with the greedy bees | J |
| Marigold glittering in the grass scant foxglove ringing faintly lonely | P |
| Close red fruit beading the long boughs and bindweed wreathing where it please | J |
| - | |
| A tawny lean cat Marmalade slinks like a panther through the tall | L |
| Thin bending grass and watches long a scholar thrush rehearsing song | Q |
| Or children running in the sun hunt and hunt a well lost ball | L |
| But most the garden sleeps away the day but still when eves are long | Q |
| - | |
| When eves are long and no moon rises and nervous still is all the air | R |
| That small stiff figure moves again silent amid the hushing grass | H |
| In the firm carven lime tree's shade she moves and meets her old thoughts there | R |
| Then in the deepening dark is lost or her light steps unnoted pass | H |
| - | |
| Only that careless garden keeps secure her memory though it sleeps | S |
| And the bright flowers and tyrant weed and tall grass shaking its loud seed | B |
| Less lovely were if wanting her who like a living thought still creeps | S |
| And sees what once she saw and music hears of her living sons and dead | B |
John Frederick Freeman
(1)
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