The Rivulet Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH IIJJFFKKLL MMFFNNNNOOPPQQRRSSNN TTBB NNUUGGNNVVWWNNLL FFNNNNXXYYZZNN NNLLA2QB2B2BB| This little rill that from the springs | A |
| Of yonder grove its current brings | A |
| Plays on the slope a while and then | B |
| Goes prattling into groves again | B |
| Oft to its warbling waters drew | C |
| My little feet when life was new | C |
| When woods in early green were dressed | D |
| And from the chambers of the west | D |
| The warmer breezes travelling out | E |
| Breathed the new scent of flowers about | E |
| My truant steps from home would stray | F |
| Upon its grassy side to play | F |
| List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn | G |
| And crop the violet on its brim | G |
| With blooming cheek and open brow | H |
| As young and gay sweet rill as thou | H |
| - | |
| And when the days of boyhood came | I |
| And I had grown in love with fame | I |
| Duly I sought thy banks and tried | J |
| My first rude numbers by thy side | J |
| Words cannot tell how bright and gay | F |
| The scenes of life before me lay | F |
| Then glorious hopes that now to speak | K |
| Would bring the blood into my cheek | K |
| Passed o'er me and I wrote on high | L |
| A name I deemed should never die | L |
| - | |
| Years change thee not Upon yon hill | M |
| The tall old maples verdant still | M |
| Yet tell in grandeur of decay | F |
| How swift the years have passed away | F |
| Since first a child and half afraid | N |
| I wandered in the forest shade | N |
| Thou ever joyous rivulet | N |
| Dost dimple leap and prattle yet | N |
| And sporting with the sands that pave | O |
| The windings of thy silver wave | O |
| And dancing to thy own wild chime | P |
| Thou laughest at the lapse of time | P |
| The same sweet sounds are in my ear | Q |
| My early childhood loved to hear | Q |
| As pure thy limpid waters run | R |
| As bright they sparkle to the sun | R |
| As fresh and thick the bending ranks | S |
| Of herbs that line thy oozy banks | S |
| The violet there in soft May dew | N |
| Comes up as modest and as blue | N |
| As green amid thy current's stress | T |
| Floats the scarce rooted watercress | T |
| And the brown ground bird in thy glen | B |
| Still chirps as merrily as then | B |
| - | |
| Thou changest not but I am changed | N |
| Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged | N |
| And the grave stranger come to see | U |
| The play place of his infancy | U |
| Has scarce a single trace of him | G |
| Who sported once upon thy brim | G |
| The visions of my youth are past | N |
| Too bright too beautiful to last | N |
| I've tried the world it wears no more | V |
| The colouring of romance it wore | V |
| Yet well has Nature kept the truth | W |
| She promised to my earliest youth | W |
| The radiant beauty shed abroad | N |
| On all the glorious works of God | N |
| Shows freshly to my sobered eye | L |
| Each charm it wore in days gone by | L |
| - | |
| A few brief years shall pass away | F |
| And I all trembling weak and gray | F |
| Bowed to the earth which waits to fold | N |
| My ashes in the embracing mould | N |
| If haply the dark will of fate | N |
| Indulge my life so long a date | N |
| May come for the last time to look | X |
| Upon my childhood's favourite brook | X |
| Then dimly on my eye shall gleam | Y |
| The sparkle of thy dancing stream | Y |
| And faintly on my ear shall fall | Z |
| Thy prattling current's merry call | Z |
| Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright | N |
| As when thou met'st my infant sight | N |
| - | |
| And I shall sleep and on thy side | N |
| As ages after ages glide | N |
| Children their early sports shall try | L |
| And pass to hoary age and die | L |
| But thou unchanged from year to year | A2 |
| Gayly shalt play and glitter here | Q |
| Amid young flowers and tender grass | B2 |
| Thy endless infancy shalt pass | B2 |
| And singing down thy narrow glen | B |
| Shalt mock the fading race of men | B |
William Cullen Bryant
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Rivulet poem by William Cullen Bryant
Best Poems of William Cullen Bryant