But then it is not as if this final line is entirely matchless either, since it contains an internal rhyme of ‘Sea/Me’, echoing the same internal rhyme found in the second line of the poem. Felt Poem Of The River Rar Focusing on the contributions of keyboardist Martin Duffy (who'd become singer Lawrence Hayward's main instrumental foil after the departure of guitarist Maurice Deebank), Poem of the River once again offered rich, organ-enhanced folk-rock topped with Hayward's droning but expressive vocals.
Structurally, ‘My River runs to thee’ is slightly different from Emily Dickinson’s usual quatrains: instead, we get three sets of rhyming couplets, and then a single, standalone line, which is not granted a second line to pair with – aptly, since this is the point at which the fluvial speaker poses her question and makes her proposal, ‘wait reply’.
The river offers to ‘fetch’ the sea some smaller ‘Brooks’, as if these smaller water-channels are a sort of dowry which the river is proposing to bring to the union. That is, in the context of the poem itself we don’t but knowing how the natural world works, we also know that the sea will take the river’s waters in as its own. We say ‘courtly lover’, as though this were an example of a courtly love poem, because the sea never replies: we do not know whether the river’s wish is granted.
