A Word For The Country Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDDDEFEFDGHGDIDI JKDKLJLJDMDMFDFDENFN DDDDFOEOEOEODOFOEFKF FDPDEDEDFEEEOOOOODFD DDDDOFEFEQEQFOLOEOER FSDSEOEOLOFOOROTEDUD OFOFOMVMEOEODDFDDFDF DELEEWEWDFFFEDEDOXFX| Men born of the land that for ages | A |
| Has been honoured where freedom was dear | B |
| Till your labour wax fat on its wages | A |
| You shall never be peers of a peer | B |
| Where might is the right is | C |
| Long purses make strong swords | D |
| Let weakness learn meekness | D |
| God save the House of Lords | D |
| You are free to consume in stagnation | E |
| You are equal in right to obey | F |
| You are brothers in bonds and the nation | E |
| Is your mother whose sons are her prey | F |
| Those others your brothers | D |
| Who toil not weave nor till | G |
| Refuse you and use you | H |
| As waiters on their will | G |
| But your fathers bowed down to their masters | D |
| And obeyed them and served and adored | I |
| Shall the sheep not give thanks to their pastors | D |
| Shall the serf not give praise to his lord | I |
| Time waning and gaining | J |
| Grown other now than then | K |
| Needs pastors and masters | D |
| For sheep and not for men | K |
| If his grandsire did service in battle | L |
| If his grandam was kissed by a king | J |
| Must men to my lord be as cattle | L |
| Or as apes that he leads in a string | J |
| To deem so to dream so | D |
| Would bid the world proclaim | M |
| The dastards for bastards | D |
| Not heirs of England's fame | M |
| Not in spite but in right of dishonour | F |
| There are actors who trample your boards | D |
| Till the earth that endures you upon her | F |
| Grows weary to bear you my lords | D |
| Your token is broken | E |
| It will not pass for gold | N |
| Your glory looks hoary | F |
| Your sun in heaven turns cold | N |
| They are worthy to reign on their brothers | D |
| To contemn them as clods and as carles | D |
| Who are Graces by grace of such mothers | D |
| As brightened the bed of King Charles | D |
| What manner of banner | F |
| What fame is this they flaunt | O |
| That Britain soul smitten | E |
| Should shrink before their vaunt | O |
| Bright sons of sublime prostitution | E |
| You are made of the mire of the street | O |
| Where your grandmothers walked in pollution | E |
| Till a coronet shone at their feet | O |
| Your Graces whose faces | D |
| Bear high the bastard's brand | O |
| Seem stronger no longer | F |
| Than all this honest land | O |
| But the sons of her soldiers and seamen | E |
| They are worthy forsooth of their hire | F |
| If the father won praise from all free men | K |
| Shall the sons not exult in their sire | F |
| Let money make sunny | F |
| And power make proud their lives | D |
| And feed them and breed them | P |
| Like drones in drowsiest hives | D |
| But if haply the name be a burden | E |
| And the souls be no kindred of theirs | D |
| Should wise men rejoice in such guerdon | E |
| Or brave men exult in such heirs | D |
| Or rather the father | F |
| Frown shamefaced on the son | E |
| And no men but foemen | E |
| Deriding cry 'Well done' | E |
| Let the gold and the land they inherit | O |
| Pass ever from hand into hand | O |
| In right of the forefather's merit | O |
| Let the gold be the son's and the land | O |
| Soft raiment rich payment | O |
| High place the state affords | D |
| Full measure of pleasure | F |
| But now no more my lords | D |
| Is the future beleaguered with dangers | D |
| If the poor be far other than slaves | D |
| Shall the sons of the land be as strangers | D |
| In the land of their forefathers' graves | D |
| Shame were it to bear it | O |
| And shame it were to see | F |
| If free men you be men | E |
| Let proof proclaim you free | F |
| 'But democracy means dissolution | E |
| See laden with clamour and crime | Q |
| How the darkness of dim revolution | E |
| Comes deepening the twilight of time | Q |
| Ah better the fetter | F |
| That holds the poor man's hand | O |
| Than peril of sterile | L |
| Blind change that wastes the land | O |
| 'Gaze forward through clouds that environ | E |
| It shall be as it was in the past | O |
| Not with dreams but with blood and with iron | E |
| Shall a nation be moulded to last ' | R |
| So teach they so preach they | F |
| Who dream themselves the dream | S |
| That hallows the gallows | D |
| And bids the scaffold stream | S |
| 'With a hero at head and a nation | E |
| Well gagged and well drilled and well cowed | O |
| And a gospel of war and damnation | E |
| Has not empire a right to be proud | O |
| Fools prattle and tattle | L |
| Of freedom reason right | O |
| The beauty of duty | F |
| The loveliness of light | O |
| 'But we know we believe it we see it | O |
| Force only has power upon earth ' | R |
| So be it and ever so be it | O |
| For souls that are bestial by birth | T |
| Let Prussian with Russian | E |
| Exchange the kiss of slaves | D |
| But sea folk are free folk | U |
| By grace of winds and waves | D |
| Has the past from the sepulchres beckoned | O |
| Let answer from Englishmen be | F |
| No man shall be lord of us reckoned | O |
| Who is baser not better than we | F |
| No coward empowered | O |
| To soil a brave man's name | M |
| For shame's sake and fame's sake | V |
| Enough of fame and shame | M |
| Fame needs not the golden addition | E |
| Shame bears it abroad as a brand | O |
| Let the deed and no more the tradition | E |
| Speak out and be heard through the land | O |
| Pride rootless and fruitless | D |
| No longer takes and gives | D |
| But surer and purer | F |
| The soul of England lives | D |
| He is master and lord of his brothers | D |
| Who is worthier and wiser than they | F |
| Him only him surely shall others | D |
| Else equal observe and obey | F |
| Truth flawless and awless | D |
| Do falsehood what it can | E |
| Makes royal the loyal | L |
| And simple heart of man | E |
| Who are these then that England should hearken | E |
| Who rage and wax wroth and grow pale | W |
| If she turn from the sunsets that darken | E |
| And her ship for the morning set sail | W |
| Let strangers fear dangers | D |
| All know that hold her dear | F |
| Dishonour upon her | F |
| Can only fall through fear | F |
| Men born of the landsmen and seamen | E |
| Who served her with souls and with swords | D |
| She bids you be brothers and free men | E |
| And lordless and fearless of lords | D |
| She cares not she dares not | O |
| Care now for gold or steel | X |
| Light lead her truth speed her | F |
| God save the Commonweal | X |
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1)
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