May-day Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCDEFGEFHIHIJKLML LNLNLLOOPQQRSTUEVWWV LLXXLLEEEEELEL ALAFFELYLYWEW ELEWSZWLLA2MA2MLLB2C 2B2C2LLLLA2A2 LELLE D2OD2OE2F2LLLLLLLFLG 2LLLH2I2J2K2J2H2LLLH 2I2 AFAFL2M2L2M2AN2N2LLB 2O2LLAAL LLLM2P2LEM2EQ2Q2LLRR I2I2R2R2P2P2 S2T2U2U2LLV2V2LL LLV2V2V2V2V2V2W2W2V2 V2X2X2LLV2V2V2V2Y2Y2 LLLLV2Z2Z2A3A3 LLV2V2EEV2V2V2B3V2V2 C3V2D3E3C3LLV2V2F3F3 S2S2 V2V2G3V2LDaughter of Heaven and Earth coy Spring | A |
With sudden passion languishing | A |
Maketh all things softly smile | B |
Painteth pictures mile on mile | B |
Holds a cup with cowslip wreaths | C |
Whence a smokeless incense breathes | D |
Girls are peeling the sweet willow | E |
Poplar white and Gilead tree | F |
And troops of boys | G |
Shouting with whoop and hilloa | E |
And hip hip three times three | F |
The air is full of whistlings bland | H |
What was that I heard | I |
Out of the hazy land | H |
Harp of the wind or song of bird | I |
Or clapping of shepherd's hands | J |
Or vagrant booming of the air | K |
Voice of a meteor lost in day | L |
Such tidings of the starry sphere | M |
Can this elastic air convey | L |
Or haply 't was the cannonade | L |
Of the pent and darkened lake | N |
Cooled by the pendent mountain's shade | L |
Whose deeps till beams of noonday break | N |
Afflicted moan and latest hold | L |
Even unto May the iceberg cold | L |
Was it a squirrel's pettish bark | O |
Or clarionet of jay or hark | O |
Where yon wedged line the Nestor leads | P |
Steering north with raucous cry | Q |
Through tracts and provinces of sky | Q |
Every night alighting down | R |
In new landscapes of romance | S |
Where darkling feed the clamorous clans | T |
By lonely lakes to men unknown | U |
Come the tumult whence it will | E |
Voice of sport or rush of wings | V |
It is a sound it is a token | W |
That the marble sleep is broken | W |
And a change has passed on things | V |
- | |
Beneath the calm within the light | L |
A hid unruly appetite | L |
Of swifter life a surer hope | X |
Strains every sense to larger scope | X |
Impatient to anticipate | L |
The halting steps of aged Fate | L |
Slow grows the palm too slow the pearl | E |
When Nature falters fain would zeal | E |
Grasp the felloes of her wheel | E |
And grasping give the orbs another whirl | E |
Turn swiftlier round O tardy ball | E |
And sun this frozen side | L |
Bring hither back the robin's call | E |
Bring back the tulip's pride | L |
- | |
Why chidest thou the tardy Spring | A |
The hardy bunting does not chide | L |
The blackbirds make the maples ring | A |
With social cheer and jubilee | F |
The redwing flutes his o ka lee | F |
The robins know the melting snow | E |
The sparrow meek prophetic eyed | L |
Her nest beside the snow drift weaves | Y |
Secure the osier yet will hide | L |
Her callow brood in mantling leaves | Y |
And thou by science all undone | W |
Why only must thy reason fail | E |
To see the southing of the sun | W |
- | |
As we thaw frozen flesh with snow | E |
So Spring will not foolish fond | L |
Mix polar night with tropic glow | E |
Nor cloy us with unshaded sun | W |
Nor wanton skip with bacchic dance | S |
But she has the temperance | Z |
Of the gods whereof she is one | W |
Masks her treasury of heat | L |
Under east winds crossed with sleet | L |
Plants and birds and humble creatures | A2 |
Well accept her rule austere | M |
Titan born to hardy natures | A2 |
Cold is genial and dear | M |
As Southern wrath to Northern right | L |
Is but straw to anthracite | L |
As in the day of sacrifice | B2 |
When heroes piled the pyre | C2 |
The dismal Massachusetts ice | B2 |
Burned more than others' fire | C2 |
So Spring guards with surface cold | L |
The garnered heat of ages old | L |
Hers to sow the seed of bread | L |
That man and all the kinds be fed | L |
And when the sunlight fills the hours | A2 |
Dissolves the crust displays the flowers | A2 |
- | |
The world rolls round mistrust it not | L |
Befalls again what once befell | E |
All things return both sphere and mote | L |
And I shall hear my bluebird's note | L |
And dream the dream of Auburn dell | E |
- | |
When late I walked in earlier days | D2 |
All was stiff and stark | O |
Knee deep snows choked all the ways | D2 |
In the sky no spark | O |
Firm braced I sought my ancient woods | E2 |
Struggling through the drifted roads | F2 |
The whited desert knew me not | L |
Snow ridges masked each darling spot | L |
The summer dells by genius haunted | L |
One arctic moon had disenchanted | L |
All the sweet secrets therein hid | L |
By Fancy ghastly spells undid | L |
Eldest mason Frost had piled | L |
With wicked ingenuity | F |
Swift cathedrals in the wild | L |
The piny hosts were sheeted ghosts | G2 |
In the star lit minster aisled | L |
I found no joy the icy wind | L |
Might rule the forest to his mind | L |
Who would freeze in frozen brakes | H2 |
Back to books and sheltered home | I2 |
And wood fire flickering on the walls | J2 |
To hear when 'mid our talk and games | K2 |
Without the baffled north wind calls | J2 |
But soft a sultry morning breaks | H2 |
The cowslips make the brown brook gay | L |
A happier hour a longer day | L |
Now the sun leads in the May | L |
Now desire of action wakes | H2 |
And the wish to roam | I2 |
- | |
The caged linnet in the Spring | A |
Hearkens for the choral glee | F |
When his fellows on the wing | A |
Migrate from the Southern Sea | F |
When trellised grapes their flowers unmask | L2 |
And the new born tendrils twine | M2 |
The old wine darkling in the cask | L2 |
Feels the bloom on the living vine | M2 |
And bursts the hoops at hint of Spring | A |
And so perchance in Adam's race | N2 |
Of Eden's bower some dream like trace | N2 |
Survived the Flight and swam the Flood | L |
And wakes the wish in youngest blood | L |
To tread the forfeit Paradise | B2 |
And feed once more the exile's eyes | O2 |
And ever when the happy child | L |
In May beholds the blooming wild | L |
And hears in heaven the bluebird sing | A |
'Onward ' he cries 'your baskets bring | A |
In the next field is air more mild | L |
And o'er yon hazy crest is Eden's balmier Spring ' | - |
- | |
Not for a regiment's parade | L |
Nor evil laws or rulers made | L |
Blue Walden rolls its cannonade | L |
But for a lofty sign | M2 |
Which the Zodiac threw | P2 |
That the bondage days are told | L |
And waters free as winds shall flow | E |
Lo how all the tribes combine | M2 |
To rout the flying foe | E |
See every patriot oak leaf throws | Q2 |
His elfin length upon the snows | Q2 |
Not idle since the leaf all day | L |
Draws to the spot the solar ray | L |
Ere sunset quarrying inches down | R |
And half way to the mosses brown | R |
While the grass beneath the rime | I2 |
Has hints of the propitious time | I2 |
And upward pries and perforates | R2 |
Through the cold slab a thousand gates | R2 |
Till green lances peering through | P2 |
Bend happy in the welkin blue | P2 |
- | |
April cold with dropping rain | S2 |
Willows and lilacs brings again | T2 |
The whistle of returning birds | U2 |
And trumpet lowing of the herds | U2 |
The scarlet maple keys betray | L |
What potent blood hath modest May | L |
What fiery force the earth renews | V2 |
The wealth of forms the flush of hues | V2 |
Joy shed in rosy waves abroad | L |
Flows from the heart of Love the Lord | L |
- | |
Hither rolls the storm of heat | L |
I feel its finer billows beat | L |
Like a sea which me infolds | V2 |
Heat with viewless fingers moulds | V2 |
Swells and mellows and matures | V2 |
Paints and flavours and allures | V2 |
Bird and brier inly warms | V2 |
Still enriches and transforms | V2 |
Gives the reed and lily length | W2 |
Adds to oak and oxen strength | W2 |
Boils the world in tepid lakes | V2 |
Burns the world yet burnt remakes | V2 |
Enveloping heat enchanted robe | X2 |
Wraps the daisy and the globe | X2 |
Transforming what it doth infold | L |
Life out of death new out of old | L |
Painting fawns' and leopards' fells | V2 |
Seethes the gulf encrimsoning shells | V2 |
Fires garden with a joyful blaze | V2 |
Of tulips in the morning's rays | V2 |
The dead log touched bursts into leaf | Y2 |
The wheat blade whispers of the sheaf | Y2 |
What god is this imperial Heat | L |
Earth's prime secret sculpture's seat | L |
Doth it bear hidden in its heart | L |
Water line patterns of all art | L |
All figures organs hues and graces | V2 |
Is it Daedalus is it Love | Z2 |
Or walks in mask almighty Jove | Z2 |
And drops from Power's redundant horn | A3 |
All seeds of beauty to be born | A3 |
- | |
Where shall we keep the holiday | L |
And duly greet the entering May | L |
Too strait and low our cottage doors | V2 |
And all unmeet our carpet floors | V2 |
Nor spacious court nor monarch's hall | E |
Suffice to hold the festival | E |
Up and away where haughty woods | V2 |
Front the liberated floods | V2 |
We will climb the broad backed hills | V2 |
Hear the uproar of their joy | B3 |
We will mark the leaps and gleams | V2 |
Of the new delivered streams | V2 |
And the murmuring rivers of sap | C3 |
Mount in the pipes of the trees | V2 |
Giddy with day to the topmost spire | D3 |
Which for a spike of tender green | E3 |
Bartered its powdery cap | C3 |
And the colours of joy in the bird | L |
And the love in its carol heard | L |
Frog and lizard in holiday coats | V2 |
And turtle brave in his golden spots | V2 |
We will hear the tiny roar | F3 |
Of the insects evermore | F3 |
While cheerful cries of crag and plain | S2 |
Reply to the thunder of river and main | S2 |
- | |
As poured the flood of the ancient sea | V2 |
Spilling over mountain chains | V2 |
Bending forests as bends the sedge | G3 |
Faster flowing o'er the plains | V2 |
A world | L |
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1)
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