The Titmouse Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AAAABBCCDEAAFFGGHHAA AA IIJJAAKKL AAAAAAMMNN OONNNNNNNAABBNNPPQRS T UGVVWWXXYYZZA AAA2A2AAB2B2IIAAIIWW AAAAC2NNNWA2You shall not be overbold | A |
When you deal with arctic cold | A |
As late I found my lukewarm blood | A |
Chilled wading in the snow choked wood | A |
How should I fight my foeman fine | B |
Has million arms to one of mine | B |
East west for aid I looked in vain | C |
East west north south are his domain | C |
Miles off three dangerous miles is home | D |
Must borrow his winds who there would come | E |
Up and away for life be fleet | A |
The frost king ties my fumbling feet | A |
Sings in my ears my hands are stones | F |
Curdles the blood to the marble bones | F |
Tugs at the heart strings numbs the sense | G |
And hems in life with narrowing fence | G |
Well in this broad bed lie and sleep | H |
The punctual stars will vigil keep | H |
Embalmed by purifying cold | A |
The winds shall sing their dead march old | A |
The snow is no ignoble shroud | A |
The moon thy mourner and the cloud | A |
- | |
Softly but this way fate was pointing | I |
'T was coming fast to such anointing | I |
When piped a tiny voice hard by | J |
Gay and polite a cheerful cry | J |
Chic chicadeedee saucy note | A |
Out of sound heart and merry throat | A |
As if it said 'Good day good sir | K |
Fine afternoon old passenger | K |
Happy to meet you in these places | L |
Where January brings few faces ' | - |
- | |
This poet though he live apart | A |
Moved by his hospitable heart | A |
Sped when I passed his sylvan fort | A |
To do the honours of his court | A |
As fits a feathered lord of land | A |
Flew near with soft wing grazed my hand | A |
Hopped on the bough then darting low | M |
Prints his small impress on the snow | M |
Shows feats of his gymnastic play | N |
Head downward clinging to the spray | N |
- | |
Here was this atom in full breath | O |
Hurling defiance at vast death | O |
This scrap of valour just for play | N |
Fronts the north wind in waistcoat gray | N |
As if to shame my weak behaviour | N |
I greeted loud my little saviour | N |
'You pet what dost here and what for | N |
In these woods thy small Labrador | N |
At this pinch wee San Salvador | N |
What fire burns in that little chest | A |
So frolic stout and self possest | A |
Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine | B |
Ashes and jet all hues outshine | B |
Why are not diamonds black and gray | N |
To ape thy dare devil array | N |
And I affirm the spacious North | P |
Exists to draw thy virtue forth | P |
I think no virtue goes with size | Q |
The reason of all cowardice | R |
Is that men are overgrown | S |
And to be valiant must come down | T |
To the titmouse dimension ' | - |
- | |
'T is good will makes intelligence | U |
And I began to catch the sense | G |
Of my bird's song 'Live out of doors | V |
In the great woods on prairie floors | V |
I dine in the sun when he sinks in the sea | W |
I too have a hole in a hollow tree | W |
And I like less when Summer beats | X |
With stifling beams on these retreats | X |
Than noontide twilights which snow makes | Y |
With tempest of the blinding flakes | Y |
For well the soul if stout within | Z |
Can arm impregnably the skin | Z |
And polar frost my frame defied | A |
Made of the air that blows outside ' | - |
- | |
With glad remembrance of my debt | A |
I homeward turn farewell my pet | A |
When here again thy pilgrim comes | A2 |
He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs | A2 |
Doubt not so long as earth has bread | A |
Thou first and foremost shalt be fed | A |
The Providence that is most large | B2 |
Takes hearts like thine in special charge | B2 |
Helps who for their own need are strong | I |
And the sky dotes on cheerful song | I |
Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant | A |
O'er all that mass and minster vaunt | A |
For men mis hear thy call in spring | I |
As 't would accost some frivolous wing | I |
Crying out of the hazel copse Phe be | W |
And in winter Chic a dee dee | W |
I think old Caesar must have heard | A |
In northern Gaul my dauntless bird | A |
And echoed in some frosty wold | A |
Borrowed thy battle numbers bold | A |
And I will write our annals new | C2 |
And thank thee for a better clew | N |
I who dreamed not when I came here | N |
To find the antidote of fear | N |
Now hear thee say in Roman key | W |
Paean Veni vidi vici | A2 |
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1)
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