The Child's Funeral Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CBDB EFEF GHGH BIBI JKJK LMLM INI OBOB PHPH QRQR BFBF| Fair is thy site Sorrento green thy shore | A |
| Black crags behind thee pierce the clear blue skies | B |
| The sea whose borderers ruled the world of yore | A |
| As clear and bluer still before thee lies | B |
| - | |
| Vesuvius smokes in sight whose fount of fire | C |
| Outgushing drowned the cities on his steeps | B |
| And murmuring Naples spire o'ertopping spire | D |
| Sits on the slope beyond where Virgil sleeps | B |
| - | |
| Here doth the earth with flowers of every hue | E |
| Heap her green breast when April suns are bright | F |
| Flowers of the morning red or ocean blue | E |
| Or like the mountain frost of silvery white | F |
| - | |
| Currents of fragrance from the orange tree | G |
| And sward of violets breathing to and fro | H |
| Mingle and wandering out upon the sea | G |
| Refresh the idle boatsman where they blow | H |
| - | |
| Yet even here as under harsher climes | B |
| Tears for the loved and early lost are shed | I |
| That soft air saddens with the funeral chimes | B |
| Those shining flowers are gathered for the dead | I |
| - | |
| Here once a child a smiling playful one | J |
| All the day long caressing and caressed | K |
| Died when its little tongue had just begun | J |
| To lisp the names of those it loved the best | K |
| - | |
| The father strove his struggling grief to quell | L |
| The mother wept as mothers use to weep | M |
| Two little sisters wearied them to tell | L |
| When their dear Carlo would awake from sleep | M |
| - | |
| Within an inner room his couch they spread | I |
| His funeral couch with mingled grief and love | N |
| They laid a crown of roses on his head | I |
| And murmured 'Brighter is his crown above ' | - |
| - | |
| They scattered round him on the snowy sheet | O |
| Laburnum's strings of sunny coloured gems | B |
| Sad hyacinths and violets dim and sweet | O |
| And orange blossoms on their dark green stems | B |
| - | |
| And now the hour is come the priest is there | P |
| Torches are lit and bells are tolled they go | H |
| With solemn rites of blessing and of prayer | P |
| To lay the little corpse in earth below | H |
| - | |
| The door is opened hark that quick glad cry | Q |
| Carlo has waked has waked and is at play | R |
| The little sisters laugh and leap and try | Q |
| To climb the bed on which the infant lay | R |
| - | |
| And there he sits alone and gayly shakes | B |
| In his full hands the blossoms red and white | F |
| And smiles with winking eyes like one who wakes | B |
| From long deep slumbers at the morning light | F |
William Cullen Bryant
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