The Axe-helve Poem Rhyme Scheme

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I've known ere now an interfering branch	A
Of alder catch my lifted axe behind me	B
But that was in the woods to hold my hand	C
From striking at another alder's roots	D
And that was as I say an alder branch	A
This was a man Baptiste who stole one day	E
Behind me on the snow in my own yard	F
Where I was working at the chopping block	G
And cutting nothing not cut down already	B
He caught my axe expertly on the rise	H
When all my strength put forth was in his favor	I
Held it a moment where it was to calm me	B
Then took it from me and I let him take it	J
I didn't know him well enough to know	K
What it was all about There might be something	L
He had in mind to say to a bad neighbour	I
He might prefer to say to him disarmed	M
But all he had to tell me in French English	N
Was what he thought of not me but my axe	O
Me only as I took my axe to heart	P
It was the bad axe helve some one had sold me	B
'Made on machine ' he said ploughing the grain	Q
With a thick thumbnail to show how it ran	R
Across the handle's long drawn serpentine	S
Like the two strokes across a dollar sign	S
'You give her 'one good crack she's snap raght off	T
Den where's your hax ead flying t'rough de hair '	U
Admitted and yet what was that to him	V
'Come on my house and I put you one in	W
What's las' awhile good hick'ry what's grow crooked	X
De second growt' I cut myself tough tough '	U
	-
Something to sell That wasn't how it sounded	X
	-
'Den when you say you come It's cost you nothing	L
To naght '	-
	-
As well to night as any night	Y
	-
Beyond an over warmth of kitchen stove	Z
My welcome differed from no other welcome	A2
Baptiste knew best why I was where I was	B2
So long as he would leave enough unsaid	C2
I shouldn't mind his being overjoyed	D2
If overjoyed he was at having got me	B
Where I must judge if what he knew about an axe	O
That not everybody else knew was to count	E2
For nothing in the measure of a neighbour	I
Hard if though cast away for life with Yankees	F2
A Frenchman couldn't get his human rating	L
	-
Mrs Baptiste came in and rocked a chair	I
That had as many motions as the world	G2
One back and forward in and out of shadow	K
That got her nowhere one more gradual	H2
Sideways that would have run her on the stove	Z
In time had she not realized her danger	I
And caught herself up bodily chair and all	I2
And set herself back where she started from	A2
'She ain't spick too much Henglish dat's too bad '	-
I was afraid in brightening first on me	B
Then on Baptiste as if she understood	J2
'What passed between us she was only reigning	L
Baptiste was anxious for her but no more	I
Than for himself so placed he couldn't hope	K2
To keep his bargain of the morning with me	B
In time to keep me from suspecting him	V
Of really never having meant to keep it	J
	-
Needlessly soon he had his axe helves out	L2
A quiverful to choose from since he wished me	B
To have the best he had or had to spare	I
Not for me to ask which when what he took	M2
Had beauties he had to point me out at length	N2
To ensure their not being wasted on me	B
He liked to have it slender as a whipstock	M2
Free from the least knot equal to the strain	Q
Of bending like a sword across the knee	B
He showed me that the lines of a good helve	Z
Were native to the grain before the knife	Z
Expressed them and its curves were no false curves	O2
Put on it from without And there its strength lay	E
For the hard work He chafed its long white body	B
From end to end with his rough hand shut round it	J
He tried it at the eye hold in the axe head	C2
'Hahn hahn ' he mused 'don't need much taking down '	-
Baptiste knew how to make a short job long	M2
For love of it and yet not waste time either	I
	-
Do you know what we talked about was knowledge	P2
Baptiste on his defence about the children	Q2
He kept from school or did his best to keep	R2
Whatever school and children and our doubts	S2
Of laid on education had to do	T2
With the curves of his axe helves and his having	M2
Used these unscrupulously to bring me	B
To see for once the inside of his house	U2
Was I desired in friendship partly as some one	Q2
To leave it to whether the right to hold	V2
Such doubts of education should depend	W2
Upon the education of those who held them	X2
But now he brushed the shavings from his knee	B
And stood the axe there on its horse's hoof	Z
Erect but not without its waves as when	Y2
The snake stood up for evil in the Garden'	Y2
Top heavy with a heaviness his short	Z2
Thick hand made light of steel blue chin drawn down	Y2
And in a little a French touch in that	A3
Baptiste drew back and squinted at it pleased	B3
'See how she's cock her head	C2

Robert Frost

The Axe-helve Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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