An Orchard Dance Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDEDEFGFGFHHFFFIF IJKJK FLFLFMFM FFFFNNFFMMOOPQFFMMFF RSFRTTFIFI UVUVWWRRXFXFMYMYXXXX FIFI FXFXFFZFFMA2MB2FQFXX XC2D2C2 FE2FE2FIFIAll work is over at the farm | A |
And men and maids are ripe for glee | B |
Love slips among them sly and warm | C |
Or calls them to the chestnut tree | B |
As Colin looks askance at Jane | D |
He draws his hand across his mouth | E |
She understands the rustic pain | D |
And something of the tender south | E |
About her milkmaid beauty flits | F |
Her dress of lilac print for guide | G |
Draws shepherd Colin where she sits | F |
Who faring to her lovely side | G |
To snatch his evening pension tries | F |
But skimming like a bird from clutch | H |
The maid escapes his Cupid touch | H |
And speeding down a passage flies | F |
Not fast enough to cheat his eyes | F |
Ah sweet lip ways and sweet lip days | F |
And sweetheart captures of the waist | I |
How swiftly still the virgin runs | F |
She's sure at last to be embraced | I |
Now Colin fires at kiss delayed | J |
And faster flits the red stone floor | K |
Till Fortune yields the tricky maid | J |
A captive at the pantry door | K |
- | |
The farmer with his fifty years | F |
Is not too old to join the fun | L |
He pulls the milkmaids' pinky ears | F |
And bids a likely stripling run | L |
To find the fiddlers for a dance | F |
And in the cherry orchard there | M |
A tune shall mingle with romance | F |
And love be brave in open air | M |
- | |
The village wakens to the bliss | F |
The crones and gaffers crawl to see | F |
The country game of step and kiss | F |
Beneath the laden cherry tree | F |
The chairs and benches now are set | N |
Old John is wheedled from his pet | N |
The cider cup with beady eyes | F |
Responds to winkings of the skies | F |
The farmer burly in his chair | M |
Now claps for ev'ry fond and fair | M |
To foot it on the grassy patch | O |
While rustic violinists snatch | O |
From out those varnished birds of wood | P |
A tune to jink it in the blood | Q |
Now Jane and Colin in a trice | F |
Float sweetly round not less than thrice | F |
Before their motion draws a pair | M |
To revel with the dancing air | M |
The thrush that on his velvet wipes | F |
His juicy bill protesting pipes | F |
And somewhat as a piccolo | R |
Doth race the concord of the bow | S |
A virgin yonder by the tree | F |
Rejects a mate who saucily | R |
Would press if she might only start | T |
Her modest homespun to his heart | T |
Ah sweet lip ways and sweet lip days | F |
And sweetheart captures of the waist | I |
Though like a finch the maiden flies | F |
She's sure at last to be embraced | I |
- | |
The orchard now is in full bloom | U |
With rosy cheek and snowdrop throat | V |
The stars invade the growing gloom | U |
And rarelier sounds the blackbird's note | V |
But in this dewy little park | W |
Love burns the brighter for the dark | W |
And till he use a stricter rule | R |
Dear Cicely's cheek shall never cool | R |
The fiddlers storm a tomboy tune | X |
The shepherds closer clasp the girls | F |
While skirts the more desert the shoon | X |
And rebel leap the loely curls | F |
The farmer glows within his chair | M |
And muses on the dancing time | Y |
When he and she a matchless pair | M |
Were warm and nimble in their prime | Y |
God bless the man who duller grown | X |
Can feel the younger heaven anew | X |
By granting to his maids and men | X |
A romp by starlight in the dew | X |
Ah greenwood ways and greenwood days | F |
And soft pursuings of the waist | I |
The cheek must yellow out of praise | F |
And bent be those who once embraced | I |
- | |
And now they pant against the trees | F |
And using darkness for their plan | X |
Girls loose the garters at their knees | F |
And mend the clumsiness of man | X |
One virgin thankful for the dance | F |
About the music shyly trips | F |
Her Love's a fiddler and her love | Z |
Pops fruit in Paganini's lips | F |
Or finding on the starlit tree | F |
The wife and husband cherry there | M |
She hangs the couple at his cheek | A2 |
And hides the stalk with tufts of hair | M |
The girls are at the cider cup | B2 |
And shepherds tilt the yellow base | F |
Until a giddy amber flood | Q |
Runs kissing over Cicely's face | F |
And Dora's upper lip doth shine | X |
With winking beads of apple wine | X |
The fiddlers scrape a farewell tune | X |
The dancers dwindle in the dusk | C2 |
While summer puffs of easy wind | D2 |
Bring hints of cottage garden musk | C2 |
- | |
And thus the revel dearly ends | F |
With milkmaid's palm in shepherd's hand | E2 |
And lovers grow from only friends | F |
Where plum and pear and apple stand | E2 |
Ah sweet lip ways and sweet lip days | F |
And sweetheart captures of the waist | I |
How fast so e'er the virgin flies | F |
She's sure at last to be embraced | I |
Norman Rowland Gale
(1)
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