My Annual Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCC DDE FFGG HHII CCHH HHJJ HHKK LLMM NNOO JJPP QQMM RASS TTUU VVWW| How long will this harp which you once loved to hear | A |
| Cheat your lips of a smile or your eyes of a tear | B |
| How long stir the echoes it wakened of old | C |
| While its strings were unbroken untarnished its gold | C |
| - | |
| Dear friends of my boyhood my words do you wrong | D |
| The heart the heart only shall throb in my song | D |
| It reads the kind answer that looks from your eyes | E |
| 'We will bid our old harper play on till he dies ' | - |
| - | |
| Though Youth the fair angel that looked o'er the strings | F |
| Has lost the bright glory that gleamed on his wings | F |
| Though the freshness of morning has passed from its tone | G |
| It is still the old harp that was always your own | G |
| - | |
| I claim not its music each note it affords | H |
| I strike from your heart strings that lend me its chords | H |
| I know you will listen and love to the last | I |
| For it trembles and thrills with the voice of your past | I |
| - | |
| Ah brothers dear brothers the harp that I hold | C |
| No craftsman could string and no artisan mould | C |
| He shaped it He strung it who fashioned the lyres | H |
| That ring with the hymns of the seraphim choirs | H |
| - | |
| Not mine are the visions of beauty it brings | H |
| Not mine the faint fragrance around it that clings | H |
| Those shapes are the phantoms of years that are fled | J |
| Those sweets breathe from roses your summers have shed | J |
| - | |
| Each hour of the past lends its tribute to this | H |
| Till it blooms like a bower in the Garden of Bliss | H |
| The thorn and the thistle may grow as they will | K |
| Where Friendship unfolds there is Paradise still | K |
| - | |
| The bird wanders careless while summer is green | L |
| The leaf hidden cradle that rocked him unseen | L |
| When Autumn's rude fingers the woods have undressed | M |
| The boughs may look bare but they show him his nest | M |
| - | |
| Too precious these moments the lustre they fling | N |
| Is the light of our year is the gem of its ring | N |
| So brimming with sunshine we almost forget | O |
| The rays it has lost and its border of jet | O |
| - | |
| While round us the many hued halo is shed | J |
| How dear are the living how near are the dead | J |
| One circle scarce broken these waiting below | P |
| Those walking the shores where the asphodels blow | P |
| - | |
| Not life shall enlarge it nor death shall divide | Q |
| No brother new born finds his place at my side | Q |
| No titles shall freeze us no grandeurs infest | M |
| His Honor His Worship are boys like the rest | M |
| - | |
| Some won the world's homage their names we hold dear | R |
| But Friendship not Fame is the countersign here | A |
| Make room by the conqueror crowned in the strife | S |
| For the comrade that limps from the battle of life | S |
| - | |
| What tongue talks of battle Too long we have heard | T |
| In sorrow in anguish that terrible word | T |
| It reddened the sunshine it crimsoned the wave | U |
| It sprinkled our doors with the blood of our brave | U |
| - | |
| Peace Peace comes at last with her garland of white | V |
| Peace broods in all hearts as we gather to night | V |
| The blazon of Union spreads full in the sun | W |
| We echo its words We are one We are one | W |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
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