Among The Trees Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRPI BSTUVBWEXYZA2 B2WC2D2E2EF2 G2H2I2J2K2L2M2EI2N2O 2P2F2BQ2R2CBGC2S2CH2 B2T2U2V2W2X2KY2Z2WVG 2A3KB3QC3 OT2D3E3F3IG3BH3 I3CC3J3ZCK3L3T2M3N3Y LBO3B2 EP3N3Q3F2CVQEI3R3S3T 3BU3V3BVO2W3X3B2Y3H3 Z3K2A4Q2F3B4C4D4M3E4 F4Y3COh ye who love to overhang the springs | A |
And stand by running waters ye whose boughs | B |
Make beautiful the rocks o'er which they play | C |
Who pile with foliage the great hills and rear | D |
A paradise upon the lonely plain | E |
Trees of the forest and the open field | F |
Have ye no sense of being Does the air | G |
The pure air which I breathe with gladness pass | H |
In gushes o'er your delicate lungs your leaves | I |
All unenjoyed When on your winter's sleep | J |
The sun shines warm have ye no dreams of spring | K |
And when the glorious spring time comes at last | L |
Have ye no joy of all your bursting buds | M |
And fragrant blooms and melody of birds | N |
To which your young leaves shiver Do ye strive | O |
And wrestle with the wind yet know it not | P |
Feel ye no glory in your strength when he | Q |
The exhausted Blusterer flies beyond the hills | R |
And leaves you stronger yet Or have ye not | P |
A sense of loss when he has stripped your leaves | I |
Yet tender and has splintered your fair boughs | B |
Does the loud bolt that smites you from the cloud | S |
And rends you fall unfelt Do there not run | T |
Strange shudderings through your fibres when the axe | U |
Is raised against you and the shining blade | V |
Deals blow on blow until with all their boughs | B |
Your summits waver and ye fall to earth | W |
Know ye no sadness when the hurricane | E |
Has swept the wood and snapped its sturdy stems | X |
Asunder or has wrenched from out the soil | Y |
The mightiest with their circles of strong roots | Z |
And piled the ruin all along his path | A2 |
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Nay doubt we not that under the rough rind | B2 |
In the green veins of these fair growths of earth | W |
There dwells a nature that receives delight | C2 |
From all the gentle processes of life | D2 |
And shrinks from loss of being Dim and faint | E2 |
May be the sense of pleasure and of pain | E |
As in our dreams but haply real still | F2 |
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Our sorrows touch you not We watch beside | G2 |
The beds of those who languish or who die | H2 |
And minister in sadness while our hearts | I2 |
Offer perpetual prayer for life and ease | J2 |
And health to the belov d sufferers | K2 |
But ye while anxious fear and fainting hope | L2 |
Are in our chambers ye rejoice without | M2 |
The funeral goes forth a silent train | E |
Moves slowly from the desolate home our hearts | I2 |
Are breaking as we lay away the loved | N2 |
Whom we shall see no more in their last rest | O2 |
Their little cells within the burial place | P2 |
Ye have no part in this distress for still | F2 |
The February sunshine steeps your boughs | B |
And tints the buds and swells the leaves within | Q2 |
While the song sparrow warbling from her perch | R2 |
Tells you that spring is near The wind of May | C |
Is sweet with breath of orchards in whose boughs | B |
The bees and every insect of the air | G |
Make a perpetual murmur of delight | C2 |
And by whose flowers the humming bird hangs poised | S2 |
In air and draws their sweets and darts away | C |
The linden in the fervors of July | H2 |
Hums with a louder concert When the wind | B2 |
Sweeps the broad forest in its summer prime | T2 |
As when some master hand exulting sweeps | U2 |
The keys of some great organ ye give forth | V2 |
The music of the woodland depths a hymn | W2 |
Of gladness and of thanks The hermit thrush | X2 |
Pipes his sweet note to make your arches ring | K |
The faithful robin from the wayside elm | Y2 |
Carols all day to cheer his sitting mate | Z2 |
And when the autumn comes the kings of earth | W |
In all their majesty are not arrayed | V |
As ye are clothing the broad mountain side | G2 |
And spotting the smooth vales with red and gold | A3 |
While swaying to the sudden breeze ye fling | K |
Your nuts to earth and the brisk squirrel comes | B3 |
To gather them and barks with childish glee | Q |
And scampers with them to his hollow oak | C3 |
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Thus as the seasons pass ye keep alive | O |
The cheerfulness of Nature till in time | T2 |
The constant misery which wrings the heart | D3 |
Relents and we rejoice with you again | E3 |
And glory in your beauty till once more | F3 |
We look with pleasure on your varnished leaves | I |
That gayly glance in sunshine and can hear | G3 |
Delighted the soft answer which your boughs | B |
Utter in whispers to the babbling brook | H3 |
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Ye have no history I cannot know | I3 |
Who when the hillside trees were hewn away | C |
Haply two centuries since bade spare this oak | C3 |
Leaning to shade with his irregular arms | J3 |
Low bent and long the fount that from his roots | Z |
Slips through a bed of cresses toward the bay | C |
I know not who but thank him that he left | K3 |
The tree to flourish where the acorn fell | L3 |
And join these later days to that far time | T2 |
While yet the Indian hunter drew the bow | M3 |
In the dim woods and the white woodman first | N3 |
Opened these fields to sunshine turned the soil | Y |
And strewed the wheat An unremembered Past | L |
Broods like a presence mid the long gray boughs | B |
Of this old tree which has outlived so long | O3 |
The flitting generations of mankind | B2 |
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Ye have no history I ask in vain | E |
Who planted on the slope this lofty group | P3 |
Of ancient pear trees that with spring time burst | N3 |
Into such breadth of bloom One bears a scar | Q3 |
Where the quick lightning scored its trunk yet still | F2 |
It feels the breath of Spring and every May | C |
Is white with blossoms Who it was that laid | V |
Their infant roots in earth and tenderly | Q |
Cherished the delicate sprays I ask in vain | E |
Yet bless the unknown hand to which I owe | I3 |
This annual festival of bees these songs | R3 |
Of birds within their leafy screen these shouts | S3 |
Of joy from children gathering up the fruit | T3 |
Shaken in August from the willing boughs | B |
Ye that my hands have planted or have spared | U3 |
Beside the way or in the orchard ground | V3 |
Or in the open meadow ye whose boughs | B |
With every summer spread a wider shade | V |
Whose herd in coming years shall lie at rest | O2 |
Beneath your noontide shelter who shall pluck | W3 |
Your ripened fruit who grave as was the wont | X3 |
Of simple pastoral ages on the rind | B2 |
Of my smooth beeches some beloved name | Y3 |
Idly I ask yet may the eyes that look | H3 |
Upon you in your later nobler growth | Z3 |
Look also on a nobler age than ours | K2 |
An age when in the eternal strife between | A4 |
Evil and Good the Power of Good shall win | Q2 |
A grander mastery when kings no more | F3 |
Shall summon millions from the plough to learn | B4 |
The trade of slaughter and of populous realms | C4 |
Make camps of war when in our younger land | D4 |
The hand of ruffian Violence that now | M3 |
Is insolently raised to smite shall fall | E4 |
Unnerved before the calm rebuke of Law | F4 |
And Fraud his sly confederate shrink in shame | Y3 |
Back to his covert and forego his prey | C |
William Cullen Bryant
(1)
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