In School-days Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCB DEFE GBHB IBJB KBLB MNON CPQP RBSB PTUT VBWB HXYXStill sits the school house by the road | A |
A ragged beggar sleeping | B |
Around it still the sumachs grow | C |
And blackberry vines are creeping | B |
- | |
Within the master's desk is seen | D |
Deep scarred by raps official | E |
The warping floor the battered seats | F |
The jack knife's carved initial | E |
- | |
The charcoal frescoes on its wall | G |
Its door's worn sill betraying | B |
The feet that creeping slow to school | H |
Went storming out to playing | B |
- | |
Long years ago a winter sun | I |
Shone over it at setting | B |
Lit up its western window panes | J |
And low eaves' icy fretting | B |
- | |
It touched the tangled golden curls | K |
And brown eyes full of grieving | B |
Of one who still her steps delayed | L |
When all the school were leaving | B |
- | |
For near it stood the little boy | M |
Her childish favor singled | N |
His cap pulled low upon a face | O |
Where pride and shame were mingled | N |
- | |
Pushing with restless feet the snow | C |
To right and left he lingered | P |
As restlessly her tiny hands | Q |
The blue checked apron fingered | P |
- | |
He saw her lift her eyes he felt | R |
The soft hand's light caressing | B |
And heard the tremble of her voice | S |
As if a fault confessing | B |
- | |
I'm sorry that I spelt the word | P |
I hate to go above you | T |
Because the brown eyes lower fell | U |
Because you see I love you | T |
- | |
Still memory to a gray haired man | V |
That sweet child face is showing | B |
Dear girl the grasses on her grave | W |
Have forty years been growing | B |
- | |
He lives to learn in life's hard school | H |
How few who pass above him | X |
Lament their triumph and his loss | Y |
Like her because they love him | X |
John Greenleaf Whittier
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Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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Lynne L. Wilburn: they are closing down my old high school and I looked for the poem to share with my old classmates...we were not an old country school but we are a small vanishing village..it works alone with John Lennon's.""InMy Life""
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