A Lover's Quarrel Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCDBBB A EEFFEEE A GGHHGGG I JKLLKKK I MMNNMMM I OOGGOOO I PPQQPPP I LLRRLLL L MMSSMMM L TTUUTTV L GGWWGGG L GGXXYGG G ZA2MMA2A2A2 G MMB2B2MMM G MMB2B2MMM G MMC2C2MMM G D2D2XXD2D2D2 G GGMMGGG G E2E2F2F2E2E2E2 G MMMMMMM G IIG2G2III G H2H2I2I2H2H2H2I | A |
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Oh what a dawn of day | B |
How the March sun feels like May | B |
All is blue again | C |
After last night's rain | D |
And the South dries the hawthorn spray | B |
Only my Love's away | B |
I'd as lief that the blue were grey | B |
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II | A |
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Runnels which rillets swell | E |
Must be dancing down the dell | E |
With a foaming head | F |
On the beryl bed | F |
Paven smooth as a hermit's cell | E |
Each with a tale to tell | E |
Could my Love but attend as well | E |
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III | A |
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Dearest three months ago | G |
When we lived blocked up with snow | G |
When the wind would edge | H |
In and in his wedge | H |
In as far as the point could go | G |
Not to our ingle though | G |
Where we loved each the other so | G |
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IV | I |
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Laughs with so little cause | J |
We devised games out of straws | K |
We would try and trace | L |
One another's face | L |
In the ash as an artist draws | K |
Free on each other's flaws | K |
How we chattered like two church daws | K |
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V | I |
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What's in the 'Times' a scold | M |
At the Emperor deep and cold | M |
He has taken a bride | N |
To his gruesome side | N |
That's as fair as himself is bold | M |
There they sit ermine stoled | M |
And she powders her hair with gold | M |
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VI | I |
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Fancy the Pampas' sheen | O |
Miles and miles of gold and green | O |
Where the sunflowers blow | G |
In a solid glow | G |
And to break now and then the screen | O |
Black neck and eyeballs keen | O |
Up a wild horse leaps between | O |
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VII | I |
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Try will our table turn | P |
Lay your hands there light and yearn | P |
Till the yearning slips | Q |
Thro' the finger tips | Q |
In a fire which a few discern | P |
And a very few feel burn | P |
And the rest they may live and learn | P |
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VIII | I |
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Then we would up and pace | L |
For a change about the place | L |
Each with arm o'er neck | R |
'Tis our quarter deck | R |
We are seamen in woeful case | L |
Help in the ocean space | L |
Or if no help we'll embrace | L |
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IX | L |
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See how she looks now dressed | M |
In a sledging cap and vest | M |
'Tis a huge fur cloak | S |
Like a reindeer's yoke | S |
Falls the lappet along the breast | M |
Sleeves for her arms to rest | M |
Or to hang as my Love likes best | M |
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X | L |
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Teach me to flirt a fan | T |
As the Spanish ladies can | T |
Or I tint your lip | U |
With a burnt stick's tip | U |
And you turn into such a man | T |
Just the two spots that span | T |
Half the bill of the young male swan | V |
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XI | L |
- | |
Dearest three months ago | G |
When the mesmerizer Snow | G |
With his hand's first sweep | W |
Put the earth to sleep | W |
'Twas a time when the heart could show | G |
All how was earth to know | G |
'Neath the mute hand's to and fro | G |
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XII | L |
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Dearest three months ago | G |
When we loved each other so | G |
Lived and loved the same | X |
Till an evening came | X |
When a shaft from the devil's bow | Y |
Pierced to our ingle glow | G |
And the friends were friend and foe | G |
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XIII | G |
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Not from the heart beneath | Z |
'Twas a bubble born of breath | A2 |
Neither sneer nor vaunt | M |
Nor reproach nor taunt | M |
See a word how it severeth | A2 |
Oh power of life and death | A2 |
In the tongue as the Preacher saith | A2 |
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XIV | G |
- | |
Woman and will you cast | M |
For a word quite off at last | M |
Me your own your You | B2 |
Since as truth is true | B2 |
I was You all the happy past | M |
Me do you leave aghast | M |
With the memories We amassed | M |
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XV | G |
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Love if you knew the light | M |
That your soul casts in my sight | M |
How I look to you | B2 |
For the pure and true | B2 |
And the beauteous and the right | M |
Bear with a moment's spite | M |
When a mere mote threats the white | M |
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XVI | G |
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What of a hasty word | M |
Is the fleshly heart not stirred | M |
By a worm's pin prick | C2 |
Where its roots are quick | C2 |
See the eye by a fly's foot blurred | M |
Ear when a straw is heard | M |
Scratch the brain's coat of curd | M |
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XVII | G |
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Foul be the world or fair | D2 |
More or less how can I care | D2 |
'Tis the world the same | X |
For my praise or blame | X |
And endurance is easy there | D2 |
Wrong in the one thing rare | D2 |
Oh it is hard to bear | D2 |
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XVIII | G |
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Here's the spring back or close | G |
When the almond blossom blows | G |
We shall have the word | M |
In a minor third | M |
There is none but the cuckoo knows | G |
Heaps of the guelder rose | G |
I must bear with it I suppose | G |
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XIX | G |
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Could but November come | E2 |
Were the noisy birds struck dumb | E2 |
At the warning slash | F2 |
Of his driver's lash | F2 |
I would laugh like the valiant Thumb | E2 |
Facing the castle glum | E2 |
And the giant's fee faw fum | E2 |
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XX | G |
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Then were the world well stripped | M |
Of the gear wherein equipped | M |
We can stand apart | M |
Heart dispense with heart | M |
In the sun with the flowers unnipped | M |
Oh the world's hangings ripped | M |
We were both in a bare walled crypt | M |
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XXI | G |
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Each in the crypt would cry | I |
But one freezes here and why | I |
When a heart as chill | G2 |
At my own would thrill | G2 |
Back to life and its fires out fly | I |
Heart shall we live or die | I |
The rest settle by and by | I |
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XXII | G |
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So she'd efface the score | H2 |
And forgive me as before | H2 |
It is twelve o'clock | I2 |
I shall hear her knock | I2 |
In the worst of a storm's uproar | H2 |
I shall pull her through the door | H2 |
I shall have her for evermore | H2 |
Robert Browning
(2)
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