What We All Think Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJI KLKL MBMB NLN OCOC BPQP| THAT age was older once than now | A |
| In spite of locks untimely shed | B |
| Or silvered on the youthful brow | A |
| That babes make love and children wed | B |
| - | |
| That sunshine had a heavenly glow | C |
| Which faded with those 'good old days' | D |
| When winters came with deeper snow | C |
| And autumns with a softer haze | D |
| - | |
| That mother sister wife or child | E |
| The 'best of women' each has known | F |
| Were school boys ever half so wild | E |
| How young the grandpapas have grown | F |
| - | |
| That but for this our souls were free | G |
| And but for that our lives were blest | H |
| That in some season yet to be | G |
| Our cares will leave us time to rest | H |
| - | |
| Whene'er we groan with ache or pain | I |
| Some common ailment of the race | J |
| Though doctors think the matter plain | I |
| That ours is 'a peculiar case ' | - |
| - | |
| That when like babes with fingers burned | K |
| We count one bitter maxim more | L |
| Our lesson all the world has learned | K |
| And men are wiser than before | L |
| - | |
| That when we sob o'er fancied woes | M |
| The angels hovering overhead | B |
| Count every pitying drop that flows | M |
| And love us for the tears we shed | B |
| - | |
| That when we stand with tearless eye | N |
| And turn the beggar from our door | L |
| They still approve us when we sigh | N |
| 'Ah had I but one thousand more ' | - |
| - | |
| Though temples crowd the crumbled brink | O |
| O'erhanging truth's eternal flow | C |
| Their tablets bold with what we think | O |
| Their echoes dumb to what we know | C |
| - | |
| That one unquestioned text we read | B |
| All doubt beyond all fear above | P |
| Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed | Q |
| Can burn or blot it GOD IS LOVE | P |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about What We All Think poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Best Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes