To Our Mocking-bird Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCCBBCCDEEFFGG HIIHHIIHAAJJGG KLLKKLLKMNMMGG O| Died of a cat May | A |
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| I | - |
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| Trillets of humor shrewdest whistle wit | B |
| Contralto cadences of grave desire | C |
| Such as from off the passionate Indian pyre | C |
| Drift down through sandal odored flames that split | B |
| About the slim young widow who doth sit | B |
| And sing above midnights of tone entire | C |
| Tissues of moonlight shot with songs of fire | C |
| Bright drops of tune from oceans infinite | D |
| Of melody sipped off the thin edged wave | E |
| And trickling down the beak discourses brave | E |
| Of serious matter that no man may guess | F |
| Good fellow greetings cries of light distress | F |
| All these but now within the house we heard | G |
| O Death wast thou too deaf to hear the bird | G |
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| - | |
| II | - |
| - | |
| Ah me though never an ear for song thou hast | H |
| A tireless tooth for songsters thus of late | I |
| Thou camest Death thou Cat and leap'st my gate | I |
| And long ere Love could follow thou hadst passed | H |
| Within and snatched away how fast how fast | H |
| My bird wit songs and all thy richest freight | I |
| Since that fell time when in some wink of fate | I |
| Thy yellow claws unsheathed and stretched and cast | H |
| Sharp hold on Keats and dragged him slow away | A |
| And harried him with hope and horrid play | A |
| Ay him the world's best wood bird wise with song | J |
| Till thou hadst wrought thine own last mortal wrong | J |
| 'Twas wrong 'twas wrong I care not WRONG's the word | G |
| To munch our Keats and crunch our mocking bird | G |
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| III | - |
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| Nay Bird my grief gainsays the Lord's best right | K |
| The Lord was fain at some late festal time | L |
| That Keats should set all Heaven's woods in rhyme | L |
| And thou in bird notes Lo this tearful night | K |
| Methinks I see thee fresh from death's despite | K |
| Perched in a palm grove wild with pantomime | L |
| O'er blissful companies couched in shady thyme | L |
| Methinks I hear thy silver whistlings bright | K |
| Mix with the mighty discourse of the wise | M |
| Till broad Beethoven deaf no more and Keats | N |
| 'Midst of much talk uplift their smiling eyes | M |
| And mark the music of thy wood conceits | M |
| And halfway pause on some large courteous word | G |
| And call thee Brother O thou heavenly Bird | G |
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| Baltimore | O |
Sidney Lanier
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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