Woodnotes Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBCCDDEFEFFFGGGHHFF IIJFJFKFKF LMFFNNFFOOFFPPFFQQRR SFSFFQFQLTPU VVQQWPFFFFFFFF XYZZHA2B2B2C2C2D2D2Q QFFDDE2E2 FF2FF2G2MH2ME2E2QQFF E2E2QQQQFAE2E2E2E2E2 E2AI2I2E2E2FFE2 E2J2J2E2E2FFFAFAE2E2 P AFFE2E2 P FP K2F2K2F2FPE2PE2FFFFQ QL2L2FWFW PFFFFQQFFFFE2E2E2E2F FQQE2E2M2FM2FFFE2E2E 2E2FFQQE2E2FFE2E2QQA AFFFFMMN2O2FI | A |
WHEN the pine tosses its cones | B |
To the song of its waterfall tones | B |
Who speeds to the woodland walks | C |
To birds and trees who talks | C |
C sar of his leafy Rome | D |
There the poet is at home | D |
He goes to the river side | E |
Not hook nor line hath he | F |
He stands in the meadows wide | E |
Nor gun nor scythe to see | F |
Sure some god his eye enchants | F |
What he knows nobody wants | F |
In the wood he travels glad | G |
Without better fortune had | G |
Melancholy without bad | G |
Knowledge this man prizes best | H |
Seems fantastic to the rest | H |
Pondering shadows colors clouds | F |
Grass buds and caterpillar shrouds | F |
Boughs on which the wild bees settle | I |
Tints that spot the violet's petal | I |
Why Nature loves the number five | J |
And why the star form she repeats | F |
Lover of all things alive | J |
Wonderer at all he meets | F |
Wonderer chiefly at himself | K |
Who can tell him what he is | F |
Or how meet in human elf | K |
Coming and past eternities | F |
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And such I knew a forest seer | L |
A minstrel of the natural year | M |
Foreteller of the vernal ides | F |
Wise harbinger of spheres and tides | F |
A lover true who knew by heart | N |
Each joy the mountain dales impart | N |
It seemed that Nature could not raise | F |
A plant in any secret place | F |
In quaking bog on snowy hill | O |
Beneath the grass that shades the rill | O |
Under the snow between the rocks | F |
In damp fields known to bird and fox | F |
But he would come in the very hour | P |
It opened in its virgin bower | P |
As if a sunbeam showed the place | F |
And tell its long descended race | F |
It seemed as if the breezes brought him | Q |
It seemed as if the sparrows taught him | Q |
As if by secret sight he knew | R |
Where in far fields the orchis grew | R |
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Many haps fall in the field | S |
Seldom seen by wishful eyes | F |
But all her shows did Nature yield | S |
To please and win this pilgrim wise | F |
He saw the partridge drum in the woods | F |
He heard the woodcock's evening hymn | Q |
He found the tawny thrushes' broods | F |
And the shy hawk did wait for him | Q |
What others did at distance hear | L |
And guessed within the thicket's gloom | T |
Was shown to this philosopher | P |
And at his bidding seemed to come | U |
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In unploughed Maine he sought the lumberers' gang | V |
Where from a hundred lakes young rivers sprang | V |
He trod the unplanted forest floor whereon | Q |
The all seeing sun for ages hath not shone | Q |
Where feeds the moose and walks the surly bear | W |
And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker | P |
He saw beneath dim aisles in odorous beds | F |
The slight Linn a hang its twin born heads | F |
And blessed the monument of the man of flowers | F |
Which breathes his sweet fame'through the northern bowers | F |
He heard when in the grove at intervals | F |
With sudden roar the aged pine tree falls | F |
One crash the death hymn of the perfect tree | F |
Declares the close of its green century | F |
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Low lies the plant to whose creation went | X |
Sweet influence from every element | Y |
Whose living towers the years conspired to build | Z |
Whose giddy top the morning loved to gild | Z |
Through these green tents by eldest Nature dressed | H |
He roamed content alike with man and beast | A2 |
Where darkness found him he lay glad at night | B2 |
There the red morning touched him with its light | B2 |
Three moons his great heart him a hermit made | C2 |
So long he roved at will the boundless shade | C2 |
The timid it concerns to ask their way | D2 |
And fear what foe in caves and swamps can stray | D2 |
To make no step until the event is known | Q |
And ills to come as evils past bemoan | Q |
Not so the wise no coward watch he keeps | F |
To spy what danger on his pathway creeps | F |
Go where he will the wise man is at home | D |
His hearth the earth his hall the azure dome | D |
Where his clear spirit leads him there's his road | E2 |
By God's own light illumined and foreshowed | E2 |
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'T was one of the charm d days | F |
When the genius of God doth flow | F2 |
The wind may alter twenty ways | F |
A tempest cannot blow | F2 |
It may blow north it still is warm | G2 |
Or south it still is clear | M |
Or east it smells like a clover farm | H2 |
Or west no thunder fear | M |
The musing peasant lowly great | E2 |
Beside the forest water sate | E2 |
The rope like pine roots crosswise grown | Q |
Composed the network of his throne | Q |
The wide lake edged with sand and grass | F |
Was burnished to a floor of glass | F |
Painted with shadows green and proud | E2 |
Of the tree and of the cloud | E2 |
He was the heart of all the scene | Q |
On him the sun looked more serene | Q |
To hill and cloud his face was known | Q |
It seemed the likeness of their own | Q |
They knew by secret sympathy | F |
The public child of earth and sky | A |
'You ask ' he said 'what guide | E2 |
Me through trackless thickets led | E2 |
Through thick stemmed woodlands rough and wide | E2 |
I found the water's bed | E2 |
The watercourses were my guide | E2 |
I travelled grateful by their side | E2 |
Or through their channel dry | A |
They led me through the thicket damp | I2 |
Through brake and fern the beavers' camp | I2 |
Through beds of granite cut my road | E2 |
And their resistless friendship showed | E2 |
The falling waters led me | F |
The foodful waters fed me | F |
And brought me to the lowest land | E2 |
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Unerring to the ocean sand | E2 |
The moss upon the forest bark | J2 |
Was pole star when the night was dark | J2 |
The purple berries in the wood | E2 |
Supplied me necessary food | E2 |
For Nature ever faithful is | F |
To such as trust her faithfulness | F |
When the forest shall mislead me | F |
When the night and morning lie | A |
When sea and land refuse to feed me | F |
'T will be time enough to die | A |
Then will yet my mother yield | E2 |
A pillow in her greenest field | E2 |
Nor the June flowers scorn to cover | P |
The clay of their departed lover ' | - |
- | |
II | A |
As sunbeams stream through liberal space | F |
And nothing jostle or displace | F |
So waved the pine tree through my thought | E2 |
And fanned the dreams it never brought | E2 |
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'Whether is better the gift or the donor | P |
Come to me ' | - |
Quoth the pine tree | F |
'I am the giver of honor | P |
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My garden is the cloven rock | K2 |
And my manure the snow | F2 |
And drifting sand heaps feed my stock | K2 |
In summer's scorching glow | F2 |
He is great who can live by me | F |
The rough and bearded forester | P |
Is better than the lord | E2 |
God fills the scrip and canister | P |
Sin piles the loaded board | E2 |
The lord is the peasant that was | F |
The peasant the lord that shall be | F |
The lord is hay the peasant grass | F |
One dry and one the living tree | F |
Who liveth by the ragged pine | Q |
Foundeth a heroic line | Q |
Who liveth in the palace hall | L2 |
Waneth fast and spendeth all | L2 |
He goes to my savage haunts | F |
With his chariot and his care | W |
My twilight realm he disenchants | F |
And finds his prison there | W |
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'What prizes the town and the tower | P |
Only what the pine tree yields | F |
Sinew that subdued the fields | F |
The wild eyed boy who in the woods | F |
Chants his hymn to hills and floods | F |
Whom the city's poisoning spleen | Q |
Made not pale or fat or lean | Q |
Whom the rain and the wind purgeth | F |
Whom the dawn and the day star urgeth | F |
In whose cheek the rose leaf blusheth | F |
In whose feet the lion rusheth | F |
Iron arms and iron mould | E2 |
That know not fear fatigue or cold | E2 |
I give my rafters to his boat | E2 |
My billets to his boiler's throat | E2 |
And I will swim the ancient sea | F |
To float my child to victory | F |
And grant to dwellers with the pine | Q |
Dominion o'er the palm and vine | Q |
Who leaves the pine tree leaves his friend | E2 |
Unnerves his strength invites his end | E2 |
Cut a bough from my parent stem | M2 |
And dip it in thy porcelain vase | F |
A little while each russet gem | M2 |
Will swell and rise with wonted grace | F |
But when it seeks enlarged supplies | F |
The orphan of the forest dies | F |
Whoso walks in solitude | E2 |
And inhabiteth the wood | E2 |
Choosing light wave rock and bird | E2 |
Before the money loving herd | E2 |
Into that forester shall pass | F |
From these companions power and grace | F |
Clean shall he be without within | Q |
From the old adhering sin | Q |
All ill dissolving in the light | E2 |
Of his triumphant piercing sight | E2 |
Not vain sour nor frivolous | F |
Not mad athirst nor garrulous | F |
Grave chaste contented though retired | E2 |
And of all other men desired | E2 |
On him the light of star and moon | Q |
Shall fall with purer radiance down | Q |
All constellations of the sky | A |
Shed their virtue through his eye | A |
Him Nature giveth for defence | F |
His formidable innocence | F |
The mounting sap the shells the sea | F |
All spheres all stones his helpers be | F |
He shall meet the speeding year | M |
Without wailing without fear | M |
He shall be happy in his love | N2 |
Like to like shall joyful prove | O2 |
He s | F |
Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1)
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