Tantramar Revisited Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMN AOAPKQCARS AATUVEWOXARA RYZA2RB2TC2D2AAAAA EAEE2 F2G2H2I2TAAOEHSummers and summers have come and gone with the flight of the swallow | A |
Sunshine and thunder have been storm and winter and frost | B |
Many and many a sorrow has all but died from remembrance | C |
Many a dream of joy fall'n in the shadow of pain | D |
Hands of chance and change have marred or moulded or broken | E |
Busy with spirit or flesh all I most have adored | F |
Even the bosom of Earth is strewn with heavier shadows | G |
Only in these green hills aslant to the sea no change | H |
Here where the road that has climbed from the inland valleys and woodlands | I |
Dips from the hill tops down straight to the base of the hills | J |
Here from my vantage ground I can see the scattering houses | K |
Stained with time set warm in orchards meadows and wheat | L |
Dotting the broad bright slopes outspread to southward and eastward | M |
Wind swept all day long blown by the south east wind | N |
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Skirting the sunbright uplands stretches a riband of meadow | A |
Shorn of the labouring grass bulwarked well from the sea | O |
Fenced on its seaward border with long clay dykes from the turbid | A |
Surge and flow of the tides vexing the Westmoreland shores | P |
Yonder toward the left lie broad the Westmoreland marshes | K |
Miles on miles they extend level and grassy and dim | Q |
Clear from the long red sweep of flats to the sky in the distance | C |
Save for the outlying heights green rampired Cumberland Point | A |
Miles on miles outrolled and the river channels divide them | R |
Miles on miles of green barred by the hurtling gusts | S |
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Miles on miles beyond the tawny bay is Minudie | A |
There are the low blue hills villages gleam at their feet | A |
Nearer a white sail shines across the water and nearer | T |
Still are the slim grey masts of fishing boats dry on the flats | U |
Ah how well I remember those wide red flats above tide mark | V |
Pale with scurf of the salt seamed and baked in the sun | E |
Well I remember the piles of blocks and ropes and the net reels | W |
Wound with the beaded nets dripping and dark from the sea | O |
Now at this season the nets are unwound they hang from the rafters | X |
Over the fresh stowed hay in upland barns and the wind | A |
Blows all day through the chinks with the streaks of sunlight and sways them | R |
Softly at will or they lie heaped in the gloom of a loft | A |
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Now at this season the reels are empty and idle I see them | R |
Over the lines of the dykes over the gossiping grass | Y |
Now at this season they swing in the long strong wind thro' the lonesome | Z |
Golden afternoon shunned by the foraging gulls | A2 |
Near about sunset the crane will journey homeward above them | R |
Round them under the moon all the calm night long | B2 |
Winnowing soft grey wings of marsh owls wander and wander | T |
Now to the broad lit marsh now to the dusk of the dike | C2 |
Soon thro' their dew wet frames in the live keen freshness of morning | D2 |
Out of the teeth of the dawn blows back the awakening wind | A |
Then as the blue day mounts and the low shot shafts of the sunlight | A |
Glance from the tide to the shore gossamers jewelled with dew | A |
Sparkle and wave where late sea spoiling fathoms of drift net | A |
Myriad meshed uploomed sombrely over the land | A |
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Well I remember it all The salt raw scent of the margin | E |
While with men at the windlass groaned each reel and the net | A |
Surging in ponderous lengths uprose and coiled in its station | E |
Then each man to his home well I remember it all | E2 |
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Yet as I sit and watch this present peace of the landscape | F2 |
Stranded boats these reels empty and idle the hush | G2 |
One grey hawk slow wheeling above yon cluster of haystacks | H2 |
More than the old time stir this stillness welcomes me home | I2 |
Ah the old time stir how once it stung me with rapture | T |
Old time sweetness the winds freighted with honey and salt | A |
Yet will I stay my steps and not go down to the marshland | A |
Muse and recall far off rather remember than see | O |
Lest on too close sight I miss the darling illusion | E |
Spy at their task even here the hands of chance and change | H |
Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
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