An Outdoor Reception Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBBBBBCCDEBBBBFFGG HHIIBBJJKLMMNNBBBBOO PPQRSSMMBBTUOOBB VVPPWWBBTT OOOXXYYMMZZ UUBBA2A2BBBBBPPOOWWB 2C2 XXD2D2PPBBFFBBOn these green banks where falls too soon | A |
The shade of Autumn's afternoon | A |
The south wind blowing soft and sweet | B |
The water gliding at nay feet | B |
The distant northern range uplit | B |
By the slant sunshine over it | B |
With changes of the mountain mist | B |
From tender blush to amethyst | B |
The valley's stretch of shade and gleam | C |
Fair as in Mirza's Bagdad dream | C |
With glad young faces smiling near | D |
And merry voices in my ear | E |
I sit methinks as Hafiz might | B |
In Iran's Garden of Delight | B |
For Persian roses blushing red | B |
Aster and gentian bloom instead | B |
For Shiraz wine this mountain air | F |
For feast the blueberries which I share | F |
With one who proffers with stained hands | G |
Her gleanings from yon pasture lands | G |
Wild fruit that art and culture spoil | H |
The harvest of an untilled soil | H |
And with her one whose tender eyes | I |
Reflect the change of April skies | I |
Midway 'twixt child and maiden yet | B |
Fresh as Spring's earliest violet | B |
And one whose look and voice and ways | J |
Make where she goes idyllic days | J |
And one whose sweet still countenance | K |
Seems dreamful of a child's romance | L |
And others welcome as are these | M |
Like and unlike varieties | M |
Of pearls on nature's chaplet strung | N |
And all are fair for all are young | N |
Gathered from seaside cities old | B |
From midland prairie lake and wold | B |
From the great wheat fields which might feed | B |
The hunger of a world at need | B |
In healthful change of rest and play | O |
Their school vacations glide away | O |
- | |
No critics these they only see | P |
An old and kindly friend in me | P |
In whose amused indulgent look | Q |
Their innocent mirth has no rebuke | R |
They scarce can know my rugged rhymes | S |
The harsher songs of evil times | S |
Nor graver themes in minor keys | M |
Of life's and death's solemnities | M |
But haply as they bear in mind | B |
Some verse of lighter happier kind | B |
Hints of the boyhood of the man | T |
Youth viewed from life's meridian | U |
Half seriously and half in play | O |
My pleasant interviewers pay | O |
Their visit with no fell intent | B |
Of taking notes and punishment | B |
- | |
As yonder solitary pine | V |
Is ringed below with flower and vine | V |
More favored than that lonely tree | P |
The bloom of girlhood circles me | P |
In such an atmosphere of youth | W |
I half forget my age's truth | W |
The shadow of my life's long date | B |
Runs backward on the dial plate | B |
Until it seems a step might span | T |
The gulf between the boy and man | T |
- | |
My young friends smile as if some jay | O |
On bleak December's leafless spray | O |
Essayed to sing the songs of May | O |
Well let them smile and live to know | X |
When their brown locks are flecked with snow | X |
'T is tedious to be always sage | Y |
And pose the dignity of age | Y |
While so much of our early lives | M |
On memory's playground still survives | M |
And owns as at the present hour | Z |
The spell of youth's magnetic power | Z |
- | |
But though I feel with Solomon | U |
'T is pleasant to behold the sun | U |
I would not if I could repeat | B |
A life which still is good and sweet | B |
I keep in age as in my prime | A2 |
A not uncheerful step with time | A2 |
And grateful for all blessings sent | B |
I go the common way content | B |
To make no new experiment | B |
On easy terms with law and fate | B |
For what must be I calmly wait | B |
And trust the path I cannot see | P |
That God is good sufficeth me | P |
And when at last on life's strange play | O |
The curtain falls I only pray | O |
That hope may lose itself in truth | W |
And age in Heaven's immortal youth | W |
And all our loves and longing prove | B2 |
The foretaste of diviner love | C2 |
- | |
The day is done Its afterglow | X |
Along the west is burning low | X |
My visitors like birds have flown | D2 |
I hear their voices fainter grown | D2 |
And dimly through the dusk I see | P |
Their 'kerchiefs wave good night to me | P |
Light hearts of girlhood knowing nought | B |
Of all the cheer their coming brought | B |
And in their going unaware | F |
Of silent following feet of prayer | F |
Heaven make their budding promise good | B |
With flowers of gracious womanhood | B |
John Greenleaf Whittier
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