The Wind In A Frolic Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFF GGHHII JJKKLLMMNNOO PPQRRSSTUVVWX| The wind one morning sprang up from sleep | A |
| Saying Now for a frolic now for a leap | A |
| Now for a madcap galloping chase | B |
| I'll make a commotion in every place | B |
| So it swept with a bustle right through a great town | C |
| Creaking the signs and scattering down | C |
| The shutters and whisking with merciless squalls | D |
| Old women's bonnets and gingerbread stalls | D |
| There never was heard a much lustier shout | E |
| As the apples and oranges tumbled about | E |
| And urchins that stand with their thievish eyes | F |
| Forever on watch ran off each with a prize | F |
| - | |
| Then away to the fields it went blustering and humming | G |
| And the cattle all wondered whatever was coming | G |
| It plucked by their tails the grave matronly cows | H |
| And tossed the colts' manes all about their brows | H |
| Till offended at such a familiar salute | I |
| They all turned their backs and stood silently mute | I |
| - | |
| So on it went capering and playing its pranks | J |
| Whistling with reeds on the broad river banks | J |
| Puffing the birds as they sat on a spray | K |
| Or the travelers grave on the king's highway | K |
| It was not too nice to bustle the bags | L |
| Of the beggar and flutter his dirty rags | L |
| 'Twas so bold that it feared not to play its joke | M |
| With the doctor's wig and the gentleman's cloak | M |
| Through the forest it roared and cried gayly Now | N |
| You sturdy old oaks I'll make you bow | N |
| And it made them bow without more ado | O |
| Or it cracked their great branches through and through | O |
| - | |
| Then it rushed like a monster o'er cottage and farm | P |
| Striking their inmates with sudden alarm | P |
| And they ran out like bees in a midsummer swarm | Q |
| There were dames with kerchiefs tied over their caps | R |
| To see if their poultry were free from mishaps | R |
| The turkeys they gobbled the geese screamed aloud | S |
| And the hens crept to roost in a terrified crowd | S |
| There was rearing of ladders and logs laying on | T |
| Where the thatch from the roof threatened soon to be gone | U |
| But the wind had passed on and had met in a lane | V |
| With a schoolboy who panted and struggled in vain | V |
| For it tossed him and twirled him then passed and he stood | W |
| With his hat in a pool and his shoe in the mud | X |
William Howitt
(5)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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Write your comment about The Wind In A Frolic poem by William Howitt
Anthea Jackson : This was a poem I used to recite at school.
Grace Doughty: One of my favourite poems from high school in the late nineteen fifties! in my memory I recalled up to the line:":old women's bonnets and ginger bred stalls" with a few words missing. So I decided to look the poem up, and, behold there is more! I do enjoy recalling it ,especially during the hurricane season here in the Carribbean.
Mary Regisson: I read that poem 56 years ago at school in the carribean.
Mary G Regisson: I read that poem at School in the Carribean and loved it so much happy i have it on my computer. that was 56 years ago.
Reshmi kujur: I love nature and I love reading this poem regularly
Reshmi: I love nature and I love reading this poem regularly
E serrette : This was one of the poems that my dad would recite regularly, he died at 97, it’s a great poem, puts you smack in the middle of the commotion
Victoria Sanchez: This is a really cute and really easy to understand when reading it
Christian Galvan: it was intertaning and calming
Dale Fink: My dad taught all of us the opening 4 lines in the 1950s. I never knew there was more to this poem!
richard ledwidge: s 11 at the time and I can still remember the bit I learned. I was amazed to find it all there on my computer today
Margaret : The date for that poem seems wrong. I learnt it at school in the 1950s!!!
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