Extract From "a New England Legend" Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAABCBCBDDAAEFFEGHI IJJBBJJJJKKFFLLMMJJN NOOJJJJEJEJLLPQFRRFS BRRBJJTTBJJJBHow has New England's romance fled | A |
Even as a vision of the morning | B |
Its rites foredone its guardians dead | A |
Its priestesses bereft of dread | A |
Waking the veriest urchin's scorning | B |
Gone like the Indian wizard's yell | C |
And fire dance round the magic rock | B |
Forgotten like the Druid's spell | C |
At moonrise by his holy oak | B |
No more along the shadowy glen | D |
Glide the dim ghosts of murdered men | D |
No more the unquiet churchyard dead | A |
Glimpse upward from their turfy bed | A |
Startling the traveller late and lone | E |
As on some night of starless weather | F |
They silently commune together | F |
Each sitting on his own head stone | E |
The roofless house decayed deserted | G |
Its living tenants all departed | H |
No longer rings with midnight revel | I |
Of witch or ghost or goblin evil | I |
No pale blue flame sends out its flashes | J |
Through creviced roof and shattered sashes | J |
The witch grass round the hazel spring | B |
May sharply to the night air sing | B |
But there no more shall withered hags | J |
Refresh at ease their broomstick nags | J |
Or taste those hazel shadowed waters | J |
As beverage meet for Satan's daughters | J |
No more their mimic tones be heard | K |
The mew of cat the chirp of bird | K |
Shrill blending with the hoarser laughter | F |
Of the fell demon following after | F |
The cautious goodman nails no more | L |
A horseshoe on his outer door | L |
Lest some unseemly hag should fit | M |
To his own mouth her bridle bit | M |
The goodwife's churn no more refuses | J |
Its wonted culinary uses | J |
Until with heated needle burned | N |
The witch has to her place returned | N |
Our witches are no longer old | O |
And wrinkled beldames Satan sold | O |
But young and gay and laughing creatures | J |
With the heart's sunshine on their features | J |
Their sorcery the light which dances | J |
Where the raised lid unveils its glances | J |
Or that low breathed and gentle tone | E |
The music of Love's twilight hours | J |
Soft dream like as a fairy's moan | E |
Above her nightly closing flowers | J |
Sweeter than that which sighed of yore | L |
Along the charmed Ausonian shore | L |
Even she our own weird heroine | P |
Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn ' | Q |
Sleeps calmly where the living laid her | F |
And the wide realm of sorcery | R |
Left by its latest mistress free | R |
Hath found no gray and skilled invader | F |
So perished Albion's glammarye | S |
With him in Melrose Abbey sleeping | B |
His charmed torch beside his knee | R |
That even the dead himself might see | R |
The magic scroll within his keeping | B |
And now our modern Yankee sees | J |
Nor omens spells nor mysteries | J |
And naught above below around | T |
Of life or death of sight or sound | T |
Whate'er its nature form or look | B |
Excites his terror or surprise | J |
All seeming to his knowing eyes | J |
Familiar as his catechise | J |
Or Webster's Spelling Book | B |
John Greenleaf Whittier
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