The Black Cottage Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKDLMNOPQRS TUVWXXYZBA2B2C2D2E2F 2XG2H2I2J2K2A2L2AM2N 2O2BP2Q2R2E2S2T2XBU2 V2W2X2X2Y2Z2J2A3B3C3 D3A2OE3F3G3H3B3BI3V2 J3E2A3H3K3L3M3M3N3X2 B3T2B3R2BN3O3T2P3S2B 3BQ3R3S3T3F3B3ZN3U3B 3V3W3B3B3X3C3Y3P3R2Z 3N3B3A4N3N3D3N3We chanced in passing by that afternoon | A |
To catch it in a sort of special picture | B |
Among tar banded ancient cherry trees | C |
Set well back from the road in rank lodged grass | D |
The little cottage we were speaking of | E |
A front with just a door between two windows | F |
Fresh painted by the shower a velvet black | G |
We paused the minister and I to look | H |
He made as if to hold it at arm's length | I |
Or put the leaves aside that framed it in | J |
Pretty he said Come in No one will care | K |
The path was a vague parting in the grass | D |
That led us to a weathered window sill | L |
We pressed our faces to the pane You see he said | M |
Everything's as she left it when she died | N |
Her sons won't sell the house or the things in it | O |
They say they mean to come and summer here | P |
Where they were boys They haven't come this year | Q |
They live so far away one is out west | R |
It will be hard for them to keep their word | S |
Anyway they won't have the place disturbed | T |
A buttoned hair cloth lounge spread scrolling arms | U |
Under a crayon portrait on the wall | V |
Done sadly from an old daguerreotype | W |
That was the father as he went to war | X |
She always when she talked about war | X |
Sooner or later came and leaned half knelt | Y |
Against the lounge beside it though I doubt | Z |
If such unlifelike lines kept power to stir | B |
Anything in her after all the years | A2 |
He fell at Gettysburg or Fredericksburg | B2 |
I ought to know it makes a difference which | C2 |
Fredericksburg wasn't Gettysburg of course | D2 |
But what I'm getting to is how forsaken | E2 |
A little cottage this has always seemed | F2 |
Since she went more than ever but before | X |
I don't mean altogether by the lives | G2 |
That had gone out of it the father first | H2 |
Then the two sons till she was left alone | I2 |
Nothing could draw her after those two sons | J2 |
She valued the considerate neglect | K2 |
She had at some cost taught them after years | A2 |
I mean by the world's having passed it by | L2 |
As we almost got by this afternoon | A |
It always seems to me a sort of mark | M2 |
To measure how far fifty years have brought us | N2 |
Why not sit down if you are in no haste | O2 |
These doorsteps seldom have a visitor | B |
The warping boards pull out their own old nails | P2 |
With none to tread and put them in their place | Q2 |
She had her own idea of things the old lady | R2 |
And she liked talk She had seen Garrison | E2 |
And Whittier and had her story of them | S2 |
One wasn't long in learning that she thought | T2 |
Whatever else the Civil War was for | X |
It wasn't just to keep the States together | B |
Nor just to free the slaves though it did both | U2 |
She wouldn't have believed those ends enough | V2 |
To have given outright for them all she gave | W2 |
Her giving somehow touched the principle | X2 |
That all men are created free and equal | X2 |
And to hear her quaint phrases so removed | Y2 |
From the world's view to day of all those things | Z2 |
That's a hard mystery of Jefferson's | J2 |
What did he mean Of course the easy way | A3 |
Is to decide it simply isn't true | B3 |
It may not be I heard a fellow say so | C3 |
But never mind the Welshman got it planted | D3 |
Where it will trouble us a thousand years | A2 |
Each age will have to reconsider it | O |
You couldn't tell her what the West was saying | E3 |
And what the South to her serene belief | F3 |
She had some art of hearing and yet not | G3 |
Hearing the latter wisdom of the world | H3 |
White was the only race she ever knew | B3 |
Black she had scarcely seen and yellow never | B |
But how could they be made so very unlike | I3 |
By the same hand working in the same stuff | V2 |
She had supposed the war decided that | J3 |
What are you going to do with such a person | E2 |
Strange how such innocence gets its own way | A3 |
I shouldn't be surprised if in this world | H3 |
It were the force that would at last prevail | K3 |
Do you know but for her there was a time | L3 |
When to please younger members of the church | M3 |
Or rather say non members in the church | M3 |
Whom we all have to think of nowadays | N3 |
I would have changed the Creed a very little | X2 |
Not that she ever had to ask me not to | B3 |
It never got so far as that but the bare thought | T2 |
Of her old tremulous bonnet in the pew | B3 |
And of her half asleep was too much for me | R2 |
Why I might wake her up and startle her | B |
It was the words 'descended into Hades' | N3 |
That seemed too pagan to our liberal youth | O3 |
You know they suffered from a general onslaught | T2 |
And well if they weren't true why keep right on | P3 |
Saying them like the heathen We could drop them | S2 |
Only there was the bonnet in the pew | B3 |
Such a phrase couldn't have meant much to her | B |
But suppose she had missed it from the Creed | Q3 |
As a child misses the unsaid Good night | R3 |
And falls asleep with heartache how should I feel | S3 |
I'm just as glad she made me keep hands off | T3 |
For dear me why abandon a belief | F3 |
Merely because it ceases to be true | B3 |
Cling to it long enough and not a doubt | Z |
It will turn true again for so it goes | N3 |
Most of the change we think we see in life | U3 |
Is due to truths being in and out of favour | B3 |
As I sit here and oftentimes I wish | V3 |
I could be monarch of a desert land | W3 |
I could devote and dedicate forever | B3 |
To the truths we keep coming back and back to | B3 |
So desert it would have to be so walled | X3 |
By mountain ranges half in summer snow | C3 |
No one would covet it or think it worth | Y3 |
The pains of conquering to force change on | P3 |
Scattered oases where men dwelt but mostly | R2 |
Sand dunes held loosely in tamarisk | Z3 |
Blown over and over themselves in idleness | N3 |
Sand grains should sugar in the natal dew | B3 |
The babe born to the desert the sand storm | A4 |
Retard mid waste my cowering caravans | N3 |
There are bees in this wall He struck the clapboards | N3 |
Fierce heads looked out small bodies pivoted | D3 |
We rose to go Sunset blazed on the windows | N3 |
Robert Lee Frost
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Black Cottage poem by Robert Lee Frost
Best Poems of Robert Lee Frost