The Sprig Of Lime Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJ KLIMNOPOQORSTUOOO SV OOWXYZA2 B2 OC2D2OE2F2 G2OH2I2G2OOOOG2J2K2O K2HL2OOHL2M2OTOHN2VO M2J2OOZO2VP2OP2Q2R2O S2OT2U2T2V2W2G2He lay and those who watched him were amazed | A |
To see unheralded beneath the lids | B |
Twin tears new gathered at the price of pain | C |
Start and at once run crookedly athwart | D |
Cheeks channelled long by pain never by tears | E |
So desolate too the sigh next uttered | F |
They had wept also but his great lips moved | G |
And bending down one heard 'A sprig of lime | H |
Bring me a sprig of lime ' Whereat she stole | I |
With dumb signs forth to pluck the thing he craved | J |
- | |
So lay he till a lime twig had been snapped | K |
From some still branch that swept the outer grass | L |
Far from the silver pillar of the bole | I |
Which mounting past the house's crusted roof | M |
Split into massy limbs crossed boughs a maze | N |
Of close compacted intercontorted staffs | O |
Bowered in foliage wherethrough the sun | P |
Shot sudden showers of light or crystal spars | O |
Or wavered in a green and vitreous flood | Q |
And all the while in faint and fainter tones | O |
Scarce audible on deepened evening's hush | R |
He framed his curious and last request | S |
For 'lime a sprig of lime ' Her trembling hand | T |
Closed his loose fingers on the awkward stem | U |
Covered above with gentle heart shaped leaves | O |
And under dangling pale as honey wax | O |
Square clusters of sweet scented starry flowers | O |
- | |
She laid his bent arm back upon his breast | S |
Then watched above white knuckles clenched in prayer | V |
- | |
He never moved Only at last his eyes | O |
Opened then brightened in such avid gaze | O |
She feared the coma mastered him again | W |
But no strange sobs rose chuckling in his throat | X |
A stranger ecstasy suffused the flesh | Y |
Of that just mask so sun dried gouged and old | Z |
Which few too few had loved too many feared | A2 |
'Father ' she cried 'Father ' | - |
He did not hear | B2 |
- | |
She knelt and kneeling drank the scent of limes | O |
Blown round the slow blind by a vesperal gust | C2 |
Till the room swam So the lime incense blew | D2 |
Into her life as once it had in his | O |
Though how and when and with what ageless charge | E2 |
Of sorrow and deep joy how could she know | F2 |
- | |
Sweet lime that often at the height of noon | G2 |
Diffusing dizzy fragrance from your boughs | O |
Tasselled with blossoms more innumerable | H2 |
Than the black bees the uproar of whose toil | I2 |
Filled your green vaults winning such metheglyn | G2 |
As clouds their sappy cells distil as once | O |
Ye used your sunniest emanations | O |
Toward the window where a woman kneels | O |
She who within that room in childish hours | O |
Lay through the lasting murmur of blanch'd noon | G2 |
Behind the sultry blind now full now flat | J2 |
Drinking anew of every odorous breath | K2 |
Supremely happy in her ignorance | O |
Of Time that hastens hourly and of Death | K2 |
Who need not haste Scatter your fumes O lime | H |
Loose from each hispid star of citron bloom | L2 |
Tangled beneath the labyrinthine boughs | O |
Cloud on such stinging cloud of exhalations | O |
As reek of youth fierce life and summer's prime | H |
Though hardly now shall he in that dusk room | L2 |
Savour your sweetness since the very sprig | M2 |
Profuse of blossom and of essences | O |
He smells not who in a paltering hand | T |
Clasps it laid close his peaked and gleaming face | O |
Propped in the pillow Breathe silent lofty lime | H |
Your curfew secrets out in fervid scent | N2 |
To the attendant shadows Tinge the air | V |
Of the midsummer night that now begins | O |
At an owl's oaring flight from dusk to dusk | M2 |
And downward caper of the giddy bat | J2 |
Hawking against the lustre of bare skies | O |
With something of th' unfathomable bliss | O |
He who lies dying there knew once of old | Z |
In the serene trance of a summer night | O2 |
When with th' abundance of his young bride's hair | V |
Loosed on his breast he lay and dared not sleep | P2 |
Listening for the scarce motion of your boughs | O |
Which sighed with bliss as she with blissful sleep | P2 |
And drinking desperately each honied wave | Q2 |
Of perfume wafted past the ghostly blind | R2 |
Knew first th' implacable and bitter sense | O |
Of Time that hastes and Death who need not haste | S2 |
Shed your last sweetness limes | O |
But now no more | T2 |
She fruit of that night's love she heeds you not | U2 |
Who bent compassionate to the dim floor | T2 |
Takes up the sprig of lime and presses it | V2 |
In pain against the stumbling of her heart | W2 |
Knowing untold he cannot need it now | G2 |
Robert Nichols
(1)
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