The Sensitive Plant Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBCC DDEE FGHI JKLM NNOO PPQQ BBOO EEDD RRSS OOTT TTBB USOO OOOO OOBBB OOVJ TTWW JJXX JJYY YZA2B2 OOC2C2 UUOO SSOO JJTT YDSS D2D2E2E2 JJOO PPJJ JJJJJ J OOTT JJWW F2WG2H2 OOOO I2I2YY JJJJ JJE2E2 JJTT TTOO OOUU OOJ2J2 A2A2JJ OOUU TTK2K2 L2L2JJ J DYOOPART | A |
A Sensitive Plant in a garden grew | B |
And the young winds fed it with silver dew | B |
And it opened its fan like leaves to the light | C |
And closed them beneath the kisses of Night | C |
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And the Spring arose on the garden fair | D |
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere | D |
And each flower and herb on Earth s dark breast | E |
Rose from the dreams of its wintry rest | E |
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But none ever trembled and panted with bliss | F |
In the garden the field or the wilderness | G |
Like a doe in the noontide with love s sweet want | H |
As the companionless Sensitive Plant | I |
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The snowdrop and then the violet | J |
Arose from the ground with warm rain wet | K |
And their breath was mixed with fresh odour sent | L |
From the turf like the voice and the instrument | M |
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Then the pied wind flowers and the tulip tall | N |
And narcissi the fairest among them all | N |
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream s recess | O |
Till they die of their own dear loveliness | O |
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And the Naiad like lily of the vale | P |
Whom youth makes so fair and passion so pale | P |
That the light of its tremulous bells is seen | Q |
Through their pavilions of tender green | Q |
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And the hyacinth purple and white and blue | B |
Which flung from its bells a sweet peal anew | B |
Of music so delicate soft and intense | O |
It was felt like an odour within the sense | O |
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And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed | E |
Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast | E |
Till fold after fold to the fainting air | D |
The soul of her beauty and love lay bare | D |
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And the wand like lily which lifted up | R |
As a Maenad its moonlight coloured cup | R |
Till the fiery star which is its eye | S |
Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky | S |
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And the jessamine faint and the sweet tuberose | O |
The sweetest flower for scent that blows | O |
And all rare blossoms from every clime | T |
Grew in that garden in perfect prime | T |
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And on the stream whose inconstant bosom | T |
Was pranked under boughs of embowering blossom | T |
With golden and green light slanting through | B |
Their heaven of many a tangled hue | B |
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Broad water lilies lay tremulously | U |
And starry river buds glimmered by | S |
And around them the soft stream did glide and dance | O |
With a motion of sweet sound and radiance | O |
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And the sinuous paths of lawn and of moss | O |
Which led through the garden along and across | O |
Some open at once to the sun and the breeze | O |
Some lost among bowers of blossoming trees | O |
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Were all paved with daisies and delicate bells | O |
As fair as the fabulous asphodels | O |
And flow rets which drooping as day drooped too | B |
Fell into pavilions white purple and blue | B |
To roof the glow worm from the evening dew | B |
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And from this undefiled Paradise | O |
The flowers as an infant s awakening eyes | O |
Smile on its mother whose singing sweet | V |
Can first lull and at last must awaken it | J |
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When Heaven s blithe winds had unfolded them | T |
As mine lamps enkindle a hidden gem | T |
Shone smiling to Heaven and every one | W |
Shared joy in the light of the gentle sun | W |
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For each one was interpenetrated | J |
With the light and the odour its neighbour shed | J |
Like young lovers whom youth and love make dear | X |
Wrapped and filled by their mutual atmosphere | X |
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But the Sensitive Plant which could give small fruit | J |
Of the love which it felt from the leaf to the root | J |
Received more than all it loved more than ever | Y |
Where none wanted but it could belong to the giver | Y |
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For the Sensitive Plant has no bright flower | Y |
Radiance and odour are not its dower | Z |
It loves even like Love its deep heart is full | A2 |
It desires what it has not the Beautiful | B2 |
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The light winds which from unsustaining wings | O |
Shed the music of many murmurings | O |
The beams which dart from many a star | C2 |
Of the flowers whose hues they bear afar | C2 |
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The plumed insects swift and free | U |
Like golden boats on a sunny sea | U |
Laden with light and odour which pass | O |
Over the gleam of the living grass | O |
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The unseen clouds of the dew which lie | S |
Like fire in the flowers till the sun rides high | S |
Then wander like spirits among the spheres | O |
Each cloud faint with the fragrance it bears | O |
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The quivering vapours of dim noontide | J |
Which like a sea o er the warm earth glide | J |
In which every sound and odour and beam | T |
Move as reeds in a single stream | T |
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Each and all like ministering angels were | Y |
For the Sensitive Plant sweet joy to bear | D |
Whilst the lagging hours of the day went by | S |
Like windless clouds o er a tender sky | S |
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And when evening descended from Heaven above | D2 |
And the Earth was all rest and the air was all love | D2 |
And delight though less bright was far more deep | E2 |
And the day s veil fell from the world of sleep | E2 |
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And the beasts and the birds and the insects were drowned | J |
In an ocean of dreams without a sound | J |
Whose waves never mark though they ever impress | O |
The light sand which paves it consciousness | O |
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Only overhead the sweet nightingale | P |
Ever sang more sweet as the day might fail | P |
And snatches of its Elysian chant | J |
Were mixed with the dreams of the Sensitive Plant | J |
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The Sensitive Plant was the earliest | J |
Upgathered into the bosom of rest | J |
A sweet child weary of its delight | J |
The feeblest and yet the favourite | J |
Cradled within the embrace of Night | J |
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PART | J |
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There was a Power in this sweet place | O |
An Eve in this Eden a ruling Grace | O |
Which to the flowers did they waken or dream | T |
Was as God is to the starry scheme | T |
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A Lady the wonder of her kind | J |
Whose form was upborne by a lovely mind | J |
Which dilating had moulded her mien and motion | W |
Like a sea flower unfolded beneath the ocean | W |
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Tended the garden from morn to even | F2 |
And the meteors of that sublunar Heaven | W |
Like the lamps of the air when Night walks forth | G2 |
Laughed round her footsteps up from the Earth | H2 |
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She had no companion of mortal race | O |
But her tremulous breath and her flushing face | O |
Told whilst the morn kissed the sleep from her eyes | O |
That her dreams were less slumber than Paradise | O |
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As if some bright Spirit for her sweet sake | I2 |
Had deserted Heaven while the stars were awake | I2 |
As if yet around her he lingering were | Y |
Though the veil of daylight concealed him from her | Y |
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Her step seemed to pity the grass it pressed | J |
You might hear by the heaving of her breast | J |
That the coming and going of the wind | J |
Brought pleasure there and left passion behind | J |
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And wherever her aery footstep trod | J |
Her trailing hair from the grassy sod | J |
Erased its light vestige with shadowy sweep | E2 |
Like a sunny storm o er the dark green deep | E2 |
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I doubt not the flowers of that garden sweet | J |
Rejoiced in the sound of her gentle feet | J |
I doubt not they felt the spirit that came | T |
From her glowing fingers through all their frame | T |
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She sprinkled bright water from the stream | T |
On those that were faint with the sunny beam | T |
And out of the cups of the heavy flowers | O |
She emptied the rain of the thunder showers | O |
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She lifted their heads with her tender hands | O |
And sustained them with rods and osier bands | O |
If the flowers had been her own infants she | U |
Could never have nursed them more tenderly | U |
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And all killing insects and gnawing worms | O |
And things of obscene and unlovely forms | O |
She bore in a basket of Indian woof | J2 |
Into the rough woods far aloof | J2 |
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In a basket of grasses and wild flowers full | A2 |
The freshest her gentle hands could pull | A2 |
For the poor banished insects whose intent | J |
Although they did ill was innocent | J |
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But the bee and the beamlike ephemeris | O |
Whose path is the lightning's and soft moths that kiss | O |
The sweet lips of the flowers and harm not did she | U |
Make her attendant angels be | U |
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And many an antenatal tomb | T |
Where butterflies dream of the life to come | T |
She left clinging round the smooth and dark | K2 |
Edge of the odorous cedar bark | K2 |
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This fairest creature from earliest Spring | L2 |
Thus moved through the garden ministering | L2 |
Mi the sweet season of Summertide | J |
And ere the first leaf looked brown she died | J |
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PART | J |
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Three days the flowers of the garden fair | D |
Like stars when the moon is awakened were | Y |
Or the waves of Baiae ere luminous | O |
She floats up through the smoke of Vesuvius | O |
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An | - |
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(2)
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