The Norman Boy Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCC DDEE FGHH IIJJ IIKL IIII MMII IINNHigh on a broad unfertile tract of forest skirted Down | A |
Nor kept by Nature for herself nor made by man his own | B |
From home and company remote and every playful joy | C |
Served tending a few sheep and goats a ragged Norman Boy | C |
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Him never saw I nor the spot but from an English Dame | D |
Stranger to me and yet my friend a simple notice came | D |
With suit that I would speak in verse of that sequestered child | E |
Whom one bleak winter's day she met upon the dreary Wild | E |
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His flock along the woodland's edge with relics sprinkled o'er | F |
Of last night's snow beneath a sky threatening the fall of more | G |
Where tufts of herbage tempted each were busy at their feed | H |
And the poor Boy was busier still with work of anxious heed | H |
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There 'was' he where of branches rent and withered and decayed | I |
For covert from the keen north wind his hands a hut had made | I |
A tiny tenement forsooth and frail as needs must be | J |
A thing of such materials framed by a builder such as he | J |
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The hut stood finished by his pains nor seemingly lacked aught | I |
That skill or means of his could add but the architect had wrought | I |
Some limber twigs into a Cross well shaped with fingers nice | K |
To be engrafted on the top of his small edifice | L |
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That Cross he now was fastening there as the surest power and best | I |
For supplying all deficiencies all wants of the rude nest | I |
In which from burning heat or tempest driving far and wide | I |
The innocent Boy else shelterless his lonely head must hide | I |
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That Cross belike he also raised as a standard for the true | M |
And faithful service of his heart in the worst that might ensue | M |
Of hardship and distressful fear amid the houseless waste | I |
Where he in his poor self so weak by Providence was placed | I |
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Here Lady might I cease but nay let 'us' before we part | I |
With this dear holy shepherd boy breathe a prayer of earnest heart | I |
That unto him where'er shall lie his life's appointed way | N |
The Cross fixed in his soul may prove an all sufficing stay | N |
William Wordsworth
(2)
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