The Aisne Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD BEBE FBFB GHGH IBIB JKJK LBLB JMNJ BOOB PBBP QRRQ BBSB| We first saw fire on the tragic slopes | A |
| Where the flood tide of France's early gain | B |
| Big with wrecked promise and abandoned hopes | A |
| Broke in a surf of blood along the Aisne | B |
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| The charge her heroes left us we assumed | C |
| What dying they reconquered we preserved | D |
| In the chill trenches harried shelled entombed | C |
| Winter came down on us but no man swerved | D |
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| Winter came down on us The low clouds torn | B |
| In the stark branches of the riven pines | E |
| Blurred the white rockets that from dusk till morn | B |
| Traced the wide curve of the close grappling lines | E |
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| In rain and fog that on the withered hill | F |
| Froze before dawn the lurking foe drew down | B |
| Or light snows fell that made forlorner still | F |
| The ravaged country and the ruined town | B |
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| Or the long clouds would end Intensely fair | G |
| The winter constellations blazing forth | H |
| Perseus the Twins Orion the Great Bear | G |
| Gleamed on our bayonets pointing to the north | H |
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| And the lone sentinel would start and soar | I |
| On wings of strong emotion as he knew | B |
| That kinship with the stars that only War | I |
| Is great enough to lift man's spirit to | B |
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| And ever down the curving front aglow | J |
| With the pale rockets' intermittent light | K |
| He heard like distant thunder growl and grow | J |
| The rumble of far battles in the night | K |
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| Rumors reverberant indistinct remote | L |
| Borne from red fields whose martial names have won | B |
| The power to thrill like a far trumpet note | L |
| Vic Vailly Soupir Hurtelise Craonne | B |
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| Craonne before thy cannon swept plateau | J |
| Where like sere leaves lay strewn September's dead | M |
| I found for all dear things I forfeited | N |
| A recompense I would not now forego | J |
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| For that high fellowship was ours then | B |
| With those who championing another's good | O |
| More than dull Peace or its poor votaries could | O |
| Taught us the dignity of being men | B |
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| There we drained deeper the deep cup of life | P |
| And on sublimer summits came to learn | B |
| After soft things the terrible and stern | B |
| After sweet Love the majesty of Strife | P |
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| There where we faced under those frowning heights | Q |
| The blast that maims the hurricane that kills | R |
| There where the watchlights on the winter hills | R |
| Flickered like balefire through inclement nights | Q |
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| There where firm links in the unyielding chain | B |
| Where fell the long planned blow and fell in vain | B |
| Hearts worthy of the honor and the trial | S |
| We helped to hold the lines along the Aisne | B |
Alan Seeger
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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