Sweet Fern Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF CGCG HIHI JKJK LMLM NONO PGPG QRQRThe subtle power in perfume found | A |
Nor priest nor sibyl vainly learned | B |
On Grecian shrine or Aztec mound | A |
No censer idly burned | B |
- | |
That power the old time worships knew | C |
The Corybantes' frenzied dance | D |
The Pythian priestess swooning through | C |
The wonderland of trance | D |
- | |
And Nature holds in wood and field | E |
Her thousand sunlit censers still | F |
To spells of flower and shrub we yield | E |
Against or with our will | F |
- | |
I climbed a hill path strange and new | C |
With slow feet pausing at each turn | G |
A sudden waft of west wind blew | C |
The breath of the sweet fern | G |
- | |
That fragrance from my vision swept | H |
The alien landscape in its stead | I |
Up fairer hills of youth I stepped | H |
As light of heart as tread | I |
- | |
I saw my boyhood's lakelet shine | J |
Once more through rifts of woodland shade | K |
I knew my river's winding line | J |
By morning mist betrayed | K |
- | |
With me June's freshness lapsing brook | L |
Murmurs of leaf and bee the call | M |
Of birds and one in voice and look | L |
In keeping with them all | M |
- | |
A fern beside the way we went | N |
She plucked and smiling held it up | O |
While from her hand the wild sweet scent | N |
I drank as from a cup | O |
- | |
O potent witchery of smell | P |
The dust dry leaves to life return | G |
And she who plucked them owns the spell | P |
And lifts her ghostly fern | G |
- | |
Or sense or spirit Who shall say | Q |
What touch the chord of memory thrills | R |
It passed and left the August day | Q |
Ablaze on lonely hills | R |
John Greenleaf Whittier
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