Form and Rhyme

Rolling over highlighted words or clicking the 'Show' buttons will reveal you the poem's rhyme scheme and rhythm or pattern of stresses.

• Form

  The poem is just ten lines long, with most lines exactly ten syllables [syllables: The units of sound that form a word eg. tiger has 2 syllables ti-ger, and alligator has 4 syllables al-li-gat-or. ] long. So the poem is almost like a square - ten by ten. Perhaps this reflects how limited the Old Mother's life is: she cannot break away from the rigidity of her life.

• Rhyme

  The poem is written in rhyming couplets [rhyming couplets: Pairs of lines of poetry that rhyme and have the same length and metric pattern. ]: the rhyme scheme is: AA BB CC DD EE. A half-rhyme between the first and last couplets (blow and old) helps to 'round off' the poem, which both starts and finishes with the seed of the fire.

  Rhyming couplets are a traditional rhyme scheme [rhyme scheme: In poetry, the pattern of similar sounds formed by rhyming words, especially those at the end of lines. A rhyme scheme can be represented using letters, eg AAB CCB. ] scheme for simple songs and nursery rhymes, so it is poignant that this sad song about an old woman who feels left out of life rhymes as lightly as a child's nursery rhyme.

• Rhythm

  If you say the poem out loud you can hear that there are four stresses or beats in each line. Each group of stressed and unstressed syllables is called a metric foot, and verse which has 4 feet per line like this is called tetrameter:

  I rise ¦ in the dawn, ¦ and I kneel ¦ and blow

  Till the seed ¦ of the fire ¦ flicker ¦ and glow;