Shore Birds Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIGJJKJLGGMNO PQGG| While I think of them they are growing rare | A |
| after the distances they have followed | B |
| all the way to the end for the first time | C |
| tracing a memory they did not have | D |
| until they set out to remember it | E |
| at an hour when all at once it was late | F |
| and newly silent and the white had turned | G |
| white around them then they rose in their choir | H |
| on a single note each of them alone | I |
| between the pull of the moon and the hummed | G |
| undertone of the earth below them | J |
| the glass curtains kept falling around them | J |
| as they flew in search of their place before | K |
| they were anywhere and storms winnowed them | J |
| they flew among the places with towers | L |
| and passed the tower lights where some vanished | G |
| with their long legs for wading in shadow | G |
| others were caught and stayed in the countries | M |
| of the nets and in the lands of lime twigs | N |
| some fastened and after the countries of | O |
| guns at first light fewer of them than I | P |
| remember would be here to recognize | Q |
| the light of late summer when they found it | G |
| playing with darkness along the wet sand | G |
William Stanley Merwin
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