The Adirondacs Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB CDCD EFGGHI JJKILDMIDINOIIPQIRS ITUIIJDIVWO XOIDYZO A2 B2OC2U IICD2E2F2IIG2H2I2IIJ 2K2OIIL2IM2EN2 O2IJDDUP2Q2R2S2B2DIH 2IQ2IT2 DU2V2W2KDIIUU2X2Y2Z2 A3B3S2 C3D3IE3IDF3DIG3JOH3I B3JII JI3IAB3JIAI S2DOV2OB3AB3B3B3IB3B 3IOJ3B3B3AD K3IIIB3JIIDIL3B3I AIB3IB3B3AIAIM3D B3N3IA JOURNAL | A |
DEDICATED TO MY FELLOW TRAVELLERS IN AUGUST | B |
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Wise and polite and if I drew | C |
Their several portraits you would own | D |
Chaucer had no such worthy crew | C |
Nor Boccace in Decameron | D |
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We crossed Champlain to Keeseville with our friends | E |
Thence in strong country carts rode up the forks | F |
Of the Ausable stream intent to reach | G |
The Adirondac lakes At Martin's Beach | G |
We chose our boats each man a boat and guide | H |
Ten men ten guides our company all told | I |
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Next morn we swept with oars the Saranac | J |
With skies of benediction to Round Lake | J |
Where all the sacred mountains drew around us | K |
Tahawus Seaward MacIntyre Baldhead | I |
And other Titans without muse or name | L |
Pleased with these grand companions we glide on | D |
Instead of flowers crowned with a wreath of hills | M |
And made our distance wider boat from boat | I |
As each would hear the oracle alone | D |
By the bright morn the gay flotilla slid | I |
Through files of flags that gleamed like bayonets | N |
Through gold moth haunted beds of pickerel flower | O |
Through scented banks of lilies white and gold | I |
Where the deer feeds at night the teal by day | I |
On through the Upper Saranac and up | P |
Pere Raquette stream to a small tortuous pass | Q |
Winding through grassy shallows in and out | I |
Two creeping miles of rushes pads and sponge | R |
To Follansbee Water and the Lake of Loons | S |
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Northward the length of Follansbee we rowed | I |
Under low mountains whose unbroken ridge | T |
Ponderous with beechen forest sloped the shore | U |
A pause and council then where near the head | I |
On the east a bay makes inward to the land | I |
Between two rocky arms we climb the bank | J |
And in the twilight of the forest noon | D |
Wield the first axe these echoes ever heard | I |
We cut young trees to make our poles and thwarts | V |
Barked the white spruce to weatherfend the roof | W |
Then struck a light and kindled the camp fire | O |
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The wood was sovran with centennial trees | X |
Oak cedar maple poplar beech and fir | O |
Linden and spruce In strict society | I |
Three conifers white pitch and Norway pine | D |
Five leaved three leaved and two leaved grew thereby | Y |
Our patron pine was fifteen feet in girth | Z |
The maple eight beneath its shapely tower | O |
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'Welcome ' the wood god murmured through the leaves | A2 |
'Welcome though late unknowing yet known to me ' | - |
Evening drew on stars peeped through maple boughs | B2 |
Which o'erhung like a cloud our camping fire | O |
Decayed millennial trunks like moonlight flecks | C2 |
Lit with phosphoric crumbs the forest floor | U |
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Ten scholars wonted to lie warm and soft | I |
In well hung chambers daintily bestowed | I |
Lie here on hemlock boughs like Sacs and Sioux | C |
And greet unanimous the joyful change | D2 |
So fast will Nature acclimate her sons | E2 |
Though late returning to her pristine ways | F2 |
Off soundings seamen do not suffer cold | I |
And in the forest delicate clerks unbrowned | I |
Sleep on the fragrant brush as on down beds | G2 |
Up with the dawn they fancied the light air | H2 |
That circled freshly in their forest dress | I2 |
Made them to boys again Happier that they | I |
Slipped off their pack of duties leagues behind | I |
At the first mounting of the giant stairs | J2 |
No placard on these rocks warned to the polls | K2 |
No door bell heralded a visitor | O |
No courier waits no letter came or went | I |
Nothing was ploughed or reaped or bought or sold | I |
The frost might glitter it would blight no crop | L2 |
The falling rain will spoil no holiday | I |
We were made freemen of the forest laws | M2 |
All dressed like Nature fit for her own ends | E |
Essaying nothing she cannot perform | N2 |
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In Adirondac lakes | O2 |
At morn or noon the guide rows bareheaded | I |
Shoes flannel shirt and kersey trousers make | J |
His brief toilette at night or in the rain | D |
He dons a surcoat which he doffs at morn | D |
A paddle in the right hand or an oar | U |
And in the left a gun his needful arms | P2 |
By turns we praised the stature of our guides | Q2 |
Their rival strength and suppleness their skill | R2 |
To row to swim to shoot to build a camp | S2 |
To climb a lofty stem clean without boughs | B2 |
Full fifty feet and bring the eaglet down | D |
Temper to face wolf bear or catamount | I |
And wit to track or take him in his lair | H2 |
Sound ruddy men frolic and innocent | I |
In winter lumberers in summer guides | Q2 |
Their sinewy arms pull at the oar untired | I |
Three times ten thousand strokes from morn to eve | T2 |
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Look to yourselves ye polished gentlemen | D |
No city airs or arts pass current here | U2 |
Your rank is all reversed let men of cloth | V2 |
Bow to the stalwart churls in overalls | W2 |
They are the doctors of the wilderness | K |
And we the low prized laymen | D |
In sooth red flannel is a saucy test | I |
Which few can put on with impunity | I |
What make you master fumbling at the oar | U |
Will you catch crabs Truth tries pretension here | U2 |
The sallow knows the basket maker's thumb | X2 |
The oar the guide's Dare you accept the tasks | Y2 |
He shall impose to find a spring trap foxes | Z2 |
Tell the sun's time determine the true north | A3 |
Or stumbling on through vast self similar woods | B3 |
To thread by night the nearest way to camp | S2 |
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Ask you how went the hours | C3 |
All day we swept the lake searched every cove | D3 |
North from Camp Maple south to Osprey Bay | I |
Watching when the loud dogs should drive in deer | E3 |
Or whipping its rough surface for a trout | I |
Or bathers diving from the rock at noon | D |
Challenging Echo by our guns and cries | F3 |
Or listening to the laughter of the loon | D |
Or in the evening twilight's latest red | I |
Beholding the procession of the pines | G3 |
Or later yet beneath a lighted jack | J |
In the boat's bows a silent night hunter | O |
Stealing with paddle to the feeding grounds | H3 |
Of the red deer to aim at a square mist | I |
Hark to that muffled roar a tree in the woods | B3 |
Is fallen but hush it has not scared the buck | J |
Who stands astonished at the meteor light | I |
Then turns to bound away is it too late | I |
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Sometimes we tried our rifles at a mark | J |
Six rods sixteen twenty or forty five | I3 |
Sometimes our wits at sally and retort | I |
With laughter sudden as the crack of rifle | A |
Or parties scaled the near acclivities | B3 |
Competing seekers of a rumoured lake | J |
Whose unauthenticated waves we named | I |
Lake Probability our carbuncle | A |
Long sought not found | I |
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Two Doctors in the camp | S2 |
Dissected the slain deer weighed the trout's brain | D |
Captured the lizard salamander shrew | O |
Crab mice snail dragon fly minnow and moth | V2 |
Insatiate skill in water or in air | O |
Waved the scoop net and nothing came amiss | B3 |
The while one leaden pot of alcohol | A |
Gave an impartial tomb to all the kinds | B3 |
Not less the ambitious botanist sought plants | B3 |
Orchis and gentian fern and long whip scirpus | B3 |
Rosy polygonum lake margin's pride | I |
Hypnum and hydnum mushroom sponge and moss | B3 |
Or harebell nodding in the gorge of falls | B3 |
Above the eagle flew the osprey screamed | I |
The raven croaked owls hooted the woodpecker | O |
Loud hammered and the heron rose in the swamp | J3 |
As water poured through the hollows of the hills | B3 |
To feed this wealth of lakes and rivulets | B3 |
So Nature shed all beauty lavishly | A |
From her redundant horn | D |
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Lords of this realm | K3 |
Bounded by dawn and sunset and the day | I |
Rounded by hours where each outdid the last | I |
In miracles of pomp we must be proud | I |
As if associates of the sylvan gods | B3 |
We seemed the dwellers of the zodiac | J |
So pure the Alpine element we breathed | I |
So light so lofty pictures came and went | I |
We trode on air contemned the distant town | D |
Its timorous ways big trifles and we planned | I |
That we should build hard by a spacious lodge | L3 |
And how we should come hither with our sons | B3 |
Hereafter willing they and more adroit | I |
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Hard fare hard bed and comic misery | A |
The midge the blue fly and the mosquito | I |
Painted our necks hands ankles with red bands | B3 |
But on the second day we heed them not | I |
Nay we saluted them Auxiliaries | B3 |
Whom earlier we had chid with spiteful names | B3 |
For who defends our leafy tabernacle | A |
From bold intrusion of the travelling crowd | I |
Who but the midge mosquito and the fly | A |
Which past endurance sting the tender cit | I |
But which we learn to scatter with a smudge | M3 |
Or baffle by a veil or slight by scorn | D |
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Our foaming ale we drunk from hunters' pans | B3 |
Ale and a sup of wine Our steward gave | N3 |
Venison and trout potat | I |
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1)
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