Among The Hills Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPOQRP STUVWXQEYZA2B2C2P D2E2F2G2H2PI2J2K2B2L 2PM2N2PO2P2K2B2Q2R2S 2PT2U2V2V2PW2X2V2Y2V 2Z2A3E2B3C3D3E3F3V2P PPB3V2PV2V2V2PV2G3H3 D2K2I3B3V2V2V2V2V2V2 PJ3PB3H3E3K3PNWF3V2L 3M3N3V2V2F3O3P3Q3PT2 V2R3S3H2V2 T3PB3V2PB3U3V2PPV2B3 V3V2M2B2G2W3B3T2PX2V 2B3X2V2V2V2H2D2 V2B3PB3X2X2X2X2 B3X2UX2 S3B3PB3 V3V2V2V2 V2PPP PV2LV2 V2B3PB3 H2V2V2V2 T2G2PRELUDE | A |
ALONG the roadside like the flowers of gold | B |
That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought | C |
Heavy with sunshine droops the golden rod | D |
And the red pennons of the cardinal flowers | E |
Hang motionless upon their upright staves | F |
The sky is hot and hazy and the wind | G |
Vying weary with its long flight from the south | H |
Unfelt yet closely scanned yon maple leaf | I |
With faintest motion as one stirs in dreams | J |
Confesses it The locust by the wall | K |
Stabs the noon silence with his sharp alarm | L |
A single hay cart down the dusty road | M |
Creaks slowly with its driver fast asleep | N |
On the load s top Against the neighboring hill | O |
Huddled along the stone wall s shady side | P |
The sheep show white as if a snowdrift still | O |
Defied the dog star Through the open door | Q |
A drowsy smell of flowers gray heliotrope | R |
And white sweet clover and shy mignonette | P |
Comes faintly in and silent chorus lends | S |
To the pervading symphony of peace | T |
No time is this for hands long over worn | U |
To task their strength and unto Him be praise | V |
Who giveth quietness the stress and strain | W |
Of years that did the work of centuries | X |
Have ceased and we can draw our breath once more | Q |
Freely and full So as yon harvesters | E |
Make glad their nooning underneath the elms | Y |
With tale and riddle and old snatch of song | Z |
I lay aside grave themes and idly turn | A2 |
The leaves of memory s sketch book dreaming o er | B2 |
Old summer pictures of the quiet hills | C2 |
And human life as quiet at their feet | P |
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And yet not idly all A farmer s son | D2 |
Proud of field lore and harvest craft and feeling | E2 |
All their fine possibilities how rich | F2 |
And restful even poverty and toil | G2 |
Become when beauty harmony and love | H2 |
Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat | P |
At evening in the patriarch s tent when man | I2 |
Makes labor noble and his farmer s frock | J2 |
The symbol of a Christian chivalry | K2 |
Tender and just and generous to her | B2 |
Who clothes with grace all duty still I know | L2 |
Too well the picture has another side | P |
How wearily the grind of toil goes on | M2 |
Where love is wanting how the eye and ear | N2 |
And heart are starved amidst the plenitude | P |
Of nature and how hard and colorless | O2 |
Is life without an atmosphere I look | P2 |
Across the lapse of half a century | K2 |
And call to mind old homesteads where no flower | B2 |
Told that the spring had come but evil weeds | Q2 |
Nightshade and rough leaved burdock in the place | R2 |
Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose | S2 |
And honeysuckle where the house walls seemed | P |
Blistering in sun without a tree or vine | T2 |
To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves | U2 |
Across the curtainless windows from whose panes | V2 |
Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness | V2 |
Within the cluttered kitchen floor unwashed | P |
Broom clean I think they called it the best room | W2 |
Stifling with cellar damp shut from the air | X2 |
In hot midsummer bookless pictureless | V2 |
Save the inevitable sampler hung | Y2 |
Over the fireplace or a mourning piece | V2 |
A green haired woman peony cheeked beneath | Z2 |
Impossible willows the wide throated hearth | A3 |
Bristling with faded pine boughs half concealing | E2 |
The piled up rubbish at the chimney s back | B3 |
And in sad keeping with all things about them | C3 |
Shrill querulous women sour and sullen men | D3 |
Untidy loveless old before their time | E3 |
With scarce a human interest save their own | F3 |
Monotonous round of small economies | V2 |
Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood | P |
Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed | P |
Treading the May flowers with regardless feet | P |
For them the song sparrow and the bobolink | B3 |
Sang not nor winds made music in the leaves | V2 |
For them in vain October s holocaust | P |
Burned gold and crimson over all the hills | V2 |
The sacramental mystery of the woods | V2 |
Church goers fearful of the unseen Powers | V2 |
But grumbling over pulpit tax and pew rent | P |
Saving as shrewd economists their souls | V2 |
And winter pork with the least possible outlay | G3 |
Of salt and sanctity in daily life | H3 |
Showing as little actual comprehension | D2 |
Of Christian charity and love and duty | K2 |
As if the Sermon on the Mount had been | I3 |
Outdated like a last year s almanac | B3 |
Rich in broad woodlands and in half tilled fields | V2 |
And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless | V2 |
The veriest straggler limping on his rounds | V2 |
The sun and air his sole inheritance | V2 |
Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes | V2 |
And hugged his rags in self complacency | V2 |
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Not such should be the homesteads of a land | P |
Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell | J3 |
As king and lawgiver in broad acred state | P |
With beauty art taste culture books to make | B3 |
His hour of leisure richer than a life | H3 |
Of fourscore to the barons of old time | E3 |
Our yeoman should be equal to his home | K3 |
Set in the fair green valleys purple walled | P |
A man to match his mountains not to creep | N |
Dwarfed and abased below them I would fain | W |
In this light way of which I needs must own | F3 |
With the knife grinder of whom Canning sings | V2 |
Story God bless you I have none to tell you | L3 |
Invite the eye to see and heart to feel | M3 |
The beauty and the joy within their reach | N3 |
Home and home loves and the beatitudes | V2 |
Of nature free to all Haply in years | V2 |
That wait to take the places of our own | F3 |
Heard where some breezy balcony looks down | O3 |
On happy homes or where the lake in the moon | P3 |
Sleeps dreaming of the mountains fair as Ruth | Q3 |
In the old Hebrew pastoral at the feet | P |
Of Boaz even this simple lay of mine | T2 |
May seem the burden of a prophecy | V2 |
Finding its late fulfilment in a change | R3 |
Slow as the oak s growth lifting manhood up | S3 |
Through broader culture finer manners love | H2 |
And reverence to the level of the hills | V2 |
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O Golden Age whose light is of the dawn | T3 |
And not of sunset forward not behind | P |
Flood the new heavens and earth and with thee bring | B3 |
All the old virtues whatsoever things | V2 |
Are pure and honest and of good repute | P |
But add thereto whatever bard has sung | B3 |
Or seer has told of when in trance and dream | U3 |
They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy | V2 |
Let Justice hold her scale and Truth divide | P |
Between the right and wrong but give the heart | P |
The freedom of its fair inheritance | V2 |
Let the poor prisoner cramped and starved so long | B3 |
At Nature s table feast his ear and eye | V3 |
With joy and wonder let all harmonies | V2 |
Of sound form color motion wait upon | M2 |
The princely guest whether in soft attire | B2 |
Of leisure clad or the coarse frock of toil | G2 |
And lending life to the dead form of faith | W3 |
Give human nature reverence for the sake | B3 |
Of One who bore it making it divine | T2 |
With the ineffable tenderness of God | P |
Let common need the brotherhood of prayer | X2 |
The heirship of an unknown destiny | V2 |
The unsolved mystery round about us make | B3 |
A man more precious than the gold of Ophir | X2 |
Sacred inviolate unto whom all things | V2 |
Should minister as outward types and signs | V2 |
Of the eternal beauty which fulfils | V2 |
The one great purpose of creation Love | H2 |
The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven | D2 |
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For weeks the clouds had raked the hills | V2 |
And vexed the vales with raining | B3 |
And all the woods were sad with mist | P |
And all the brooks complaining | B3 |
At last a sudden night storm tore | X2 |
The mountain veils asunder | X2 |
And swept the valleys clean before | X2 |
The bosom of the thunder | X2 |
- | |
Through Sandwich notch the west wind sang | B3 |
Good morrow to the cotter | X2 |
And once again Chocorua s horn | U |
Of shadow pierced the water | X2 |
- | |
Above his broad lake Ossipee | S3 |
Once more the sunshine wearing | B3 |
Stooped tracing on that silver shield | P |
His grim armorial bearing | B3 |
- | |
Clear drawn against the hard blue sky | V3 |
The peaks had winter s keenness | V2 |
And close on autumn s frost the vales | V2 |
Had more than June s fresh greenness | V2 |
- | |
Again the sodden forest floors | V2 |
With golden lights were checkered | P |
Once more rejoicing leaves in wind | P |
And sunshine danced and flickered | P |
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It was as if the summer s late | P |
Atoning for it s sadness | V2 |
Had borrowed every season s charm | L |
To end its days in gladness | V2 |
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I call to mind those banded vales | V2 |
Of shadow and of shining | B3 |
Through which my hostess at my side | P |
I drove in day s declining | B3 |
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We held our sideling way above | H2 |
The river s whitening shallows | V2 |
By homesteads old with wide flung barns | V2 |
Swept through and through by swallows | V2 |
- | |
By maple orchards belts of pine | T2 |
And larches climbing darkl | G2 |
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1)
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