Bryant-s Seventieth Birthday Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BBB CCC DDD EEE FFG AAH III JJJ AAA KKK LLM NNON PQP RRR SSS TTT UUU VVV WWW XXX YYY ZZZ AHA A2A2A2 ZZZ B2B2B2 C2C2C2 D2D2D2D2

NOVEMBERA
-
O EVEN HANDED Nature we confessB
This life that men so honor love and blessB
Has filled thine olden measure Not the lessB
-
We count the precious seasons that remainC
Strike not the level of the golden grainC
But heap it high with years that earth may gainC
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What heaven can lose for heaven is rich in songD
Do not all poets dying still prolongD
Their broken chants amid the seraph throngD
-
Where blind no more Ionia's bard is seenE
And England's heavenly minstrel sits betweenE
The Mantuan and the wan cheeked FlorentineE
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This was the first sweet singer in the cageF
Of our close woven life A new born ageF
Claims in his vesper song its heritageG
-
Spare us oh spare us long our heart's desireA
Moloch who calls our children through the fireA
Leaves us the gentle master of the lyreH
-
We count not on the dial of the sunI
The hours the minutes that his sands have runI
Rather as on those flowers that one by oneI
-
From earliest dawn their ordered bloom displayJ
Till evening's planet with her guiding rayJ
Leads in the blind old mother of the dayJ
-
We reckon by his songs each song a flowerA
The long long daylight numbering hour by hourA
Each breathing sweetness like a bridal bowerA
-
His morning glory shall we e'er forgetK
His noontide's full blown lily coronetK
His evening primrose has not opened yetK
-
Nay even if creeping Time should hide the skiesL
In midnight from his century laden eyesL
Darkened like his who sang of ParadiseM
-
Would not some hidden song bud open brightN
As the resplendent cactus of the nightN
That floods the gloom with fragrance and withO
lightN
-
How can we praise the verse whose music flowsP
With solemn cadence and majestic closeQ
Pure as the dew that filters through the roseP
-
How shall we thank him that in evil daysR
He faltered never nor for blame nor praiseR
Nor hire nor party shamed his earlier laysR
-
But as his boyhood was of manliest hueS
So to his youth his manly years were trueS
All dyed in royal purple through and throughS
-
He for whose touch the lyre of Heaven is strungT
Needs not the flattering toil of mortal tongueT
Let not the singer grieve to die unsungT
-
Marbles forget their message to mankindU
In his own verse the poet still we findU
In his own page his memory lives enshrinedU
-
As in their amber sweets the smothered beesV
As the fair cedar fallen before the breezeV
Lies self embalmed amidst the mouldering treesV
-
Poets like youngest children never growW
Out of their mother's fondness Nature soW
Holds their soft hands and will not let them goW
-
Till at the last they track with even feetX
Her rhythmic footsteps and their pulses beatX
Twinned with her pulses and their lips repeatX
-
The secrets she has told them as their ownY
Thus is the inmost soul of Nature knownY
And the rapt minstrel shares her awful throneY
-
O lover of her mountains and her woodsZ
Her bridal chamber's leafy solitudesZ
Where Love himself with tremulous step intrudesZ
-
Her snows fall harmless on thy sacred fireA
Far be the day that claims thy sounding lyreH
To join the music of the angel choirA
-
Yet since life's amplest measure must be filledA2
Since throbbing hearts must be forever stilledA2
And all must fade that evening sunsets gildA2
-
Grant Father ere he close the mortal eyesZ
That see a Nation's reeking sacrificeZ
Its smoke may vanish from these blackened skiesZ
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Then when his summons comes since come it mustB2
And looking heavenward with unfaltering trustB2
He wraps his drapery round him for the dustB2
-
His last fond glance will show him o'er his headC2
The Northern fires beyond the zenith spreadC2
In lambent glory blue and white and redC2
-
The Southern cross without its bleeding loadD2
The milky way of peace all freshly strowedD2
And every white throned star fixed in its lostD2
abodeD2

Oliver Wendell Holmes



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