The Mother Mourns Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCD BBED BDFD GHID JKDD GKLD MNFD OFBD PMDD FDQD RFMD SDMD KBMD GGD BDMD FBBD MQMD BGM KDMD GQMD MMBD MBK| When mid autumn's moan shook the night time | A |
| And sedges were horny | B |
| And summer's green wonderwork faltered | C |
| On leaze and in lane | D |
| - | |
| I fared Yell'ham Firs way where dimly | B |
| Came wheeling around me | B |
| Those phantoms obscure and insistent | E |
| That shadows unchain | D |
| - | |
| Till airs from the needle thicks brought me | B |
| A low lamentation | D |
| As 'twere of a tree god disheartened | F |
| Perplexed or in pain | D |
| - | |
| And heeding it awed me to gather | G |
| That Nature herself there | H |
| Was breathing in aerie accents | I |
| With dirgeful refrain | D |
| - | |
| Weary plaint that Mankind in these late days | J |
| Had grieved her by holding | K |
| Her ancient high fame of perfection | D |
| In doubt and disdain | D |
| - | |
| 'I had not proposed me a Creature | G |
| She soughed so excelling | K |
| All else of my kingdom in compass | L |
| And brightness of brain | D |
| - | |
| 'As to read my defects with a god glance | M |
| Uncover each vestige | N |
| Of old inadvertence annunciate | F |
| Each flaw and each stain | D |
| - | |
| 'My purpose went not to develop | O |
| Such insight in Earthland | F |
| Such potent appraisements affront me | B |
| And sadden my reign | D |
| - | |
| 'Why loosened I olden control here | P |
| To mechanize skywards | M |
| Undeeming great scope could outshape in | D |
| A globe of such grain | D |
| - | |
| 'Man's mountings of mind sight I checked not | F |
| Till range of his vision | D |
| Has topped my intent and found blemish | Q |
| Throughout my domain | D |
| - | |
| 'He holds as inept his own soul shell | R |
| My deftest achievement | F |
| Contemns me for fitful inventions | M |
| Ill timed and inane | D |
| - | |
| 'No more sees my sun as a Sanct shape | S |
| My moon as the Night queen | D |
| My stars as august and sublime ones | M |
| That influences rain | D |
| - | |
| 'Reckons gross and ignoble my teaching | K |
| Immoral my story | B |
| My love lights a lure that my species | M |
| May gather and gain | D |
| - | |
| ''Give me ' he has said 'but the matter | G |
| And means the gods lot her | G |
| My brain could evolve a creation | D |
| More seemly more sane ' | - |
| - | |
| 'If ever a naughtiness seized me | B |
| To woo adulation | D |
| From creatures more keen than those crude ones | M |
| That first formed my train | D |
| - | |
| 'If inly a moment I murmured | F |
| 'The simple praise sweetly | B |
| But sweetlier the sage' and did rashly | B |
| Man's vision unrein | D |
| - | |
| 'I rue it His guileless forerunners | M |
| Whose brains I could blandish | Q |
| To measure the deeps of my mysteries | M |
| Applied them in vain | D |
| - | |
| 'From them my waste aimings and futile | B |
| I subtly could cover | G |
| 'Every best thing ' said they 'to best purpose | M |
| Her powers preordain ' | - |
| - | |
| 'No more such My species are dwindling | K |
| My forests grow barren | D |
| My popinjays fail from their tappings | M |
| My larks from their strain | D |
| - | |
| 'My leopardine beauties are rarer | G |
| My tusky ones vanish | Q |
| My children have aped mine own slaughters | M |
| To quicken my wane | D |
| - | |
| 'Let me grow then but mildews and mandrakes | M |
| And slimy distortions | M |
| Let nevermore things good and lovely | B |
| To me appertain | D |
| - | |
| 'For Reason is rank in my temples | M |
| And Vision unruly | B |
| And chivalrous laud of my cunning | K |
| Is heard not again ' | - |
Thomas Hardy
(1)
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