The structure of this poem comprises of a fairly straightforward ABCD rhyme scheme. A number of these rhymes are slant rhymes or half rhymes, which means that either the consonants or vowels of stressed syllables are identical. The rhyme structure creates a largely gentle, lilting tone, which further supports the treatment of death as a gentle presence. However, these slant rhymes offer moments of discord, where the last line of the stanza is slightly imperfect or out of place. This discord foreshadows the notion of death as something that, while natural, will inevitably and permanently remove the speaker from the natural progression of life itself.
