MY NOVEMBER GUEST
My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.
The rhyme scheme of the poem is:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → abaab
Rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the ends of the lines of a stanza; lines that rhyme get the same letter. Each stanza of this poem has five lines. In the first stanza the end words are:
- me — a
- rain — b
- be — a
- tree — a
- lane — b
The other stanzas follow the same pattern: stay, list, away, grey, mist; trees, sky, sees, these, why; know, days, snow, so, praise. The rhyme scheme is abaab.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: ababab — Incorrect. It has six letters, but each stanza has only five lines.
Option 3: ababb — Incorrect. It makes the fourth line rhyme with the second, but "tree" rhymes with "me" and "be", not with "rain".
Option 4: abcab — Incorrect. It treats the third line as a new sound, but "be" rhymes with "me".