The Shadows Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAC ADAD EFEF GAGA AHAH IJIJ KLML ANAN AHAO PJPJ| 'How many have gone ' was the question of old | A |
| Ere Time our bright ring of its jewels bereft | B |
| Alas for too often the death bell has tolled | A |
| And the question we ask is 'How many are left ' | C |
| - | |
| Bright sparkled the wine there were fifty that quaffed | A |
| For a decade had slipped and had taken but three | D |
| How they frolicked and sung how they shouted and laughed | A |
| Like a school full of boys from their benches set free | D |
| - | |
| There were speeches and toasts there were stories and rhymes | E |
| The hall shook its sides with their merriment's noise | F |
| As they talked and lived over the college day times | E |
| No wonder they kept their old name of 'The Boys' | F |
| - | |
| The seasons moved on in their rhythmical flow | G |
| With mornings like maidens that pouted or smiled | A |
| With the bud and the leaf and the fruit and the snow | G |
| And the year books of Time in his alcoves were piled | A |
| - | |
| There were forty that gathered where fifty had met | A |
| Some locks had got silvered some lives had grown sere | H |
| But the laugh of the laughers was lusty as yet | A |
| And the song of the singers rose ringing and clear | H |
| - | |
| Still flitted the years there were thirty that came | I |
| 'The Boys' they were still and they answered their call | J |
| There were foreheads of care but the smiles were the same | I |
| And the chorus rang loud through the garlanded hall | J |
| - | |
| The hour hand moved on and they gathered again | K |
| There were twenty that joined in the hymn that was sung | L |
| But ah for our song bird we listened in vain | M |
| The crystalline tones like a seraph's that rung | L |
| - | |
| How narrow the circle that holds us to night | A |
| How many the loved ones that greet us no more | N |
| As we meet like the stragglers that come from the fight | A |
| Like the mariners flung from a wreck on the shore | N |
| - | |
| We look through the twilight for those we have lost | A |
| The stream rolls between us and yet they seem near | H |
| Already outnumbered by those who have crossed | A |
| Our band is transplanted its home is not here | O |
| - | |
| They smile on us still is it only a dream | P |
| While fondly or proudly their names we recall | J |
| They beckon they come they are crossing the stream | P |
| Lo the Shadows the Shadows room room for them all | J |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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