The Axe-helve Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDAEFGBHIBJKLIMNOP BQRSSTUVWXU X L Y ZA2B2C2D2BOE2IF2L IG2KH2ZII2A2 BJ2LIK2BVJ L2BIM2N2BM2QBZZO2EBJ C2 M2I P2Q2R2S2T2M2BU2Q2V2W 2X2BZY2Y2Z2Y2A3B3C2I'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
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