The Child's Funeral Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CBDB EFEF GHGH BIBI JKJK LMLM ININ OBOB PHPH QRQR BFBFFair 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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 | N |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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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