Burns Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBC DCDC EFEF GHGH ICIC JHJH KHKH JLJL MHMH NOPO DHDH QRQR SCSC THTH UOUO VHVH WXWR YCYC ZHZH A2OB2O C2HC2H D2HD2H E2YE2Y F2OF2O ZRRR G2CG2C H2CH2C HYHY G2OG2OON RECEIVING A SPRIG OF HEATHER IN BLOSSOM | A |
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No more these simple flowers belong | B |
To Scottish maid and lover | C |
Sown in the common soil of song | B |
They bloom the wide world over | C |
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In smiles and tears in sun and showers | D |
The minstrel and the heather | C |
The deathless singer and the flowers | D |
He sang of live together | C |
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Wild heather bells and Robert Burns | E |
The moorland flower and peasant | F |
How at their mention memory turns | E |
Her pages old and pleasant | F |
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The gray sky wears again its gold | G |
And purple of adorning | H |
And manhood's noonday shadows hold | G |
The dews of boyhood's morning | H |
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The dews that washed the dust and soil | I |
From off the wings of pleasure | C |
The sky that flecked the ground of toil | I |
With golden threads of leisure | C |
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I call to mind the summer day | J |
The early harvest mowing | H |
The sky with sun and clouds at play | J |
And flowers with breezes blowing | H |
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I hear the blackbird in the corn | K |
The locust in the haying | H |
And like the fabled hunter's horn | K |
Old tunes my heart is playing | H |
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How oft that day with fond delay | J |
I sought the maple's shadow | L |
And sang with Burns the hours away | J |
Forgetful of the meadow | L |
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Bees hummed birds twittered overhead | M |
I heard the squirrels leaping | H |
The good dog listened while I read | M |
And wagged his tail in keeping | H |
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I watched him while in sportive mood | N |
I read ' The Twa Dogs ' story | O |
And half believed he understood | P |
The poet's allegory | O |
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Sweet day sweet songs The golden hours | D |
Grew brighter for that singing | H |
From brook and bird and meadow flowers | D |
A dearer welcome bringing | H |
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New light on home seen Nature beamed | Q |
New glory over Woman | R |
And daily life and duty seemed | Q |
No longer poor and common | R |
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I woke to find the simple truth | S |
Of fact and feeling better | C |
Than all the dreams that held my youth | S |
A still repining debtor | C |
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That Nature gives her handmaid Art | T |
The themes of sweet discoursing | H |
The tender idyls of the heart | T |
In every tongue rehearsing | H |
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Why dream of lands of gold and pearl | U |
Of loving knight and lady | O |
When farmer boy and barefoot girl | U |
Were wandering there already | O |
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I saw through all familiar things | V |
The romance underlying | H |
The joys and griefs that plume the wings | V |
Of Fancy skyward flying | H |
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I saw the same blithe day return | W |
The same sweet fall of even | X |
That rose on wooded Craigie burn | W |
And sank on crystal Devon | R |
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I matched with Scotland's heathery hills | Y |
The sweetbrier and the clover | C |
With Ayr and Doon my native rills | Y |
Their wood hymns chanting over | C |
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O'er rank and pomp as he had seen | Z |
I saw the Man uprising | H |
No longer common or unclean | Z |
The child of God's baptizing | H |
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With clearer eyes I saw the worth | A2 |
Of life among the lowly | O |
The Bible at his Cotter's hearth | B2 |
Had made my own more holy | O |
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And if at times an evil strain | C2 |
To lawless love appealing | H |
Broke in upon the sweet refrain | C2 |
Of pure and healthful feeling | H |
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It died upon the eye and ear | D2 |
No inward answer gaining | H |
No heart had I to see or hear | D2 |
The discord and the staining | H |
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Let those who never erred forget | E2 |
His worth in vain bewailings | Y |
Sweet Soul of Song I own my debt | E2 |
Uncancelled by his failings | Y |
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Lament who will the ribald line | F2 |
Which tells his lapse from duty | O |
How kissed the maddening lips of wine | F2 |
Or wanton ones of beauty | O |
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But think while falls that shade between | Z |
The erring one and Heaven | R |
That he who loved like Magdalen | R |
Like her may be forgiven | R |
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Not his the song whose thunderous chime | G2 |
Eternal echoes render | C |
The mournful Tuscan's haunted rhyme | G2 |
And Milton's starry splendor | C |
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But who his human heart has laid | H2 |
To Nature's bosom nearer | C |
Who sweetened toil like him or paid | H2 |
To love a tribute dearer | C |
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Through all his tuneful art how strong | H |
The human feeling gushes | Y |
The very moonlight of his song | H |
Is warm with smiles and blushes | Y |
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Give lettered pomp to teeth of Time | G2 |
So 'Bonnie Doon' but tarry | O |
Blot out the Epic's stately rhyme | G2 |
But spare his Highland Mary | O |
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1)
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