Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Lord Tennyson, Alfred. "Break, Break, Break." Poetry Foundation. Ed. Kathleen Rooney. Poetry Foundation. Web. 10 Oct. 2014. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174585.
In this classic, Tennyson uses end rhyme. In each stanza, the rhyme scheme is ABCB (the first and third lines do not rhyme, but the second and fourth do). As far as the effect said scheme has on the poem, its major contribution is to the rhythm and flow of the piece. Besides that, it has little impact on our understanding of the poem, which is a reflection on Tennyson's feelings after losing his friend, fellow poet Arthur Hallam, about which he wrote his, In Memoriam A.H.H. Tennyson is describing a scene which is representative of his melancholy and lonely feelings follow the death of his close friend. Here is this beautiful, seemingly surreal scene in front of the speaker (the "fisherman's boy...with his sister at play" and the, "stately ships" in the bay), and all our speaker can think about is, "the touch of a vanish'd hand and the sound of a voice that is still," both of which presumably belong to someone who has passed on from our speaker's life in one way or another. Again, the rhyme scheme does little to enhance this almost biographical understanding of the poem or of the mood of our speaker.
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