A Message To America Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFG HHIIDDJJKLMMNNEEOOAA PPQRST UUVVWWXXQRIIYZ A2RWWB2C2D2D2E2E2F2F 2G2G2ZZH2H2I2J2K2K2L 2F2HH FGZZM2M2N2N2O2O2GGP2 P2ZZQ2Q2IIL2L2GGIIR2 R2S2S2P2P2 GGPPZZR2R2GGYou have the grit and the guts I know | A |
You are ready to answer blow for blow | A |
You are virile combative stubborn hard | B |
But your honor ends with your own back yard | B |
Each man intent on his private goal | C |
You have no feeling for the whole | C |
What singly none would tolerate | D |
You let unpunished hit the state | D |
Unmindful that each man must share | E |
The stain he lets his country wear | E |
And what no traveller ignores | F |
That her good name is often yours | G |
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You are proud in the pride that feels its might | H |
From your imaginary height | H |
Men of another race or hue | I |
Are men of a lesser breed to you | I |
The neighbor at your southern gate | D |
You treat with the scorn that has bred his hate | D |
To lend a spice to your disrespect | J |
You call him the greaser But reflect | J |
The greaser has spat on you more than once | K |
He has handed you multiple affronts | L |
He has robbed you banished you burned and killed | M |
He has gone untrounced for the blood he spilled | M |
He has jeering used for his bootblack's rag | N |
The stars and stripes of the gringo's flag | N |
And you in the depths of your easy chair | E |
What did you do what did you care | E |
Did you find the season too cold and damp | O |
To change the counter for the camp | O |
Were you frightened by fevers in Mexico | A |
I can't imagine but this I know | A |
You are impassioned vastly more | P |
By the news of the daily baseball score | P |
Than to hear that a dozen countrymen | Q |
Have perished somewhere in Darien | R |
That greasers have taken their innocent lives | S |
And robbed their holdings and raped their wives | T |
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Not by rough tongues and ready fists | U |
Can you hope to jilt in the modern lists | U |
The armies of a littler folk | V |
Shall pass you under the victor's yoke | V |
Sobeit a nation that trains her sons | W |
To ride their horses and point their guns | W |
Sobeit a people that comprehends | X |
The limit where private pleasure ends | X |
And where their public dues begin | Q |
A people made strong by discipline | R |
Who are willing to give what you've no mind to | I |
And understand what you are blind to | I |
The things that the individual | Y |
Must sacrifice for the good of all | Z |
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You have a leader who knows the man | A2 |
Most fit to be called American | R |
A prophet that once in generations | W |
Is given to point to erring nations | W |
Brighter ideals toward which to press | B2 |
And lead them out of the wilderness | C2 |
Will you turn your back on him once again | D2 |
Will you give the tiller once more to men | D2 |
Who have made your country the laughing stock | E2 |
For the older peoples to scorn and mock | E2 |
Who would make you servile despised and weak | F2 |
A country that turns the other cheek | F2 |
Who care not how bravely your flag may float | G2 |
Who answer an insult with a note | G2 |
Whose way is the easy way in all | Z |
And seeing that polished arms appal | Z |
Their marrow of milk fed pacifist | H2 |
Would tell you menace does not exist | H2 |
Are these in the world's great parliament | I2 |
The men you would choose to represent | J2 |
Your honor your manhood and your pride | K2 |
And the virtues your fathers dignified | K2 |
Oh bury them deeper than the sea | L2 |
In universal obloquy | F2 |
Forget the ground where they lie or write | H |
For epitaph Too proud to fight | H |
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I have been too long from my country's shores | F |
To reckon what state of mind is yours | G |
But as for myself I know right well | Z |
I would go through fire and shot and shell | Z |
And face new perils and make my bed | M2 |
In new privations if ROOSEVELT led | M2 |
But I have given my heart and hand | N2 |
To serve in serving another land | N2 |
Ideals kept bright that with you are dim | O2 |
Here men can thrill to their country's hymn | O2 |
For the passion that wells in the Marseillaise | G |
Is the same that fires the French these days | G |
And when the flag that they love goes by | P2 |
With swelling bosom and moistened eye | P2 |
They can look for they know that it floats there still | Z |
By the might of their hands and the strength of their will | Z |
And through perils countless and trials unknown | Q2 |
Its honor each man has made his own | Q2 |
They wanted the war no more than you | I |
But they saw how the certain menace grew | I |
And they gave two years of their youth or three | L2 |
The more to insure their liberty | L2 |
When the wrath of rifles and pennoned spears | G |
Should roll like a flood on their wrecked frontiers | G |
They wanted the war no more than you | I |
But when the dreadful summons blew | I |
And the time to settle the quarrel came | R2 |
They sprang to their guns each man was game | R2 |
And mark if they fight not to the last | S2 |
For their hearths their altars and their past | S2 |
Yea fight till their veins have been bled dry | P2 |
For love of the country that WILL not die | P2 |
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O friends in your fortunate present ease | G |
Yet faced by the self same facts as these | G |
If you would see how a race can soar | P |
That has no love but no fear of war | P |
How each can turn from his private role | Z |
That all may act as a perfect whole | Z |
How men can live up to the place they claim | R2 |
And a nation jealous of its good name | R2 |
Be true to its proud inheritance | G |
Oh look over here and learn from FRANCE | G |
Alan Seeger
(1)
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