Among School Children Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCBDBCEF A GHGHHHIJ A KLKLMLHH HHHHHHNN OHPHPHQR STTTTTHH TTTTTTTT LULVLUTT

IA
-
I walk through the long schoolroom questioningB
A kind old nun in a white hood repliesC
The children learn to cipher and to singB
To study reading books and historiesD
To cut and sew be neat in everythingB
In the best modern way the children's eyesC
In momentary wonder stare uponE
A sixty year old smiling public manF
-
IIA
-
I dream of a Ledaean body bentG
Above a sinking fire a tale that sheH
Told of a harsh reproof or trivial eventG
That changed some childish day to tragedyH
Told and it seemed that our two natures blentH
Into a sphere from youthful sympathyH
Or else to alter Plato's parableI
Into the yolk and white of the one shellJ
-
IIIA
-
And thinking of that fit of grief or rageK
I look upon one child or t'other thereL
And wonder if she stood so at that ageK
For even daughters of the swan can shareL
Something of every paddler's heritageM
And had that colour upon cheek or hairL
And thereupon my heart is driven wildH
She stands before me as a living childH
-
IV-
-
Her present image floats into the mindH
Did Quattrocento finger fashion itH
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the windH
And took a mess of shadows for its meatH
And I though never of Ledaean kindH
Had pretty plumage once enough of thatH
Better to smile on all that smile and showN
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrowN
-
V-
-
What youthful mother a shape upon her lapO
Honey of generation had betrayedH
And that must sleep shriek struggle to escapeP
As recollection or the drug decideH
Would think her Son did she but see that shapeP
With sixty or more winters on its headH
A compensation for the pang of his birthQ
Or the uncertainty of his setting forthR
-
VI-
-
Plato thought nature but a spume that playsS
Upon a ghostly paradigm of thingsT
Solider Aristotle played the tawsT
Upon the bottom of a king of kingsT
World famous golden thighed PythagorasT
Fingered upon a fiddle stick or stringsT
What a star sang and careless Muses heardH
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a birdH
-
VII-
-
Both nuns and mothers worship imagesT
But thos the candles light are not as thoseT
That animate a mother's reveriesT
But keep a marble or a bronze reposeT
And yet they too break hearts O presencesT
That passion piety or affection knowsT
And that all heavenly glory symboliseT
O self born mockers of man's enterpriseT
-
VIII-
-
Labour is blossoming or dancing whereL
The body is not bruised to pleasure soulU
Nor beauty born out of its own despairL
Nor blear eyed wisdom out of midnight oilV
O chestnut tree great rooted blossomerL
Are you the leaf the blossom or the boleU
O body swayed to music O brightening glanceT
How can we know the dancer from the danceT

William Butler Yeats



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