To A Word-warrior Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBB CBBC DBBD BEEB FGGF HBB IBBI JKKL MNNM BOOB PQQP RSSR BOOB TRUT VRRW MRRM RXXRFrank Pixley you who kiss the hand | A |
That strove to cut the country's throat | B |
Cannot forgive the hands that smote | B |
Applauding in a distant land | B |
- | |
Applauding carelessly as one | C |
The weaker willing to befriend | B |
Until the quarrel's at an end | B |
Then learn by whom it was begun | C |
- | |
When North was pitted against South | D |
Non combatants on either side | B |
In calculating fury vied | B |
And fought their foes by word of mouth | D |
- | |
That devil's camisade you led | B |
With formidable feats of tongue | E |
Upon the battle's rear you hung | E |
With Samson's weapon slew the dead | B |
- | |
So hot the ardor of your soul | F |
That every fierce civilian came | G |
His torch to kindle at your name | G |
Or have you blow his cooling coal | F |
- | |
Men prematurely left their beds | H |
And sought the gelid bath so great | B |
The heat and splendor of your hate | B |
Of Englishmen and 'Copperheads ' | - |
- | |
King Liar of deceitful men | I |
For imposition doubly armed | B |
The patriots whom your speaking charmed | B |
You stung to madness with your pen | I |
- | |
There was a certain journal here | J |
Its English owner growing rich | K |
Your hand the treason wrote for which | K |
A mob cut short its curst career | L |
- | |
If Pixley you had not the brain | M |
To know the true from false or you | N |
To Truth had courage to be true | N |
And loyal to her perfect reign | M |
- | |
If you had not your powers arrayed | B |
To serve the wrong by tricksy speech | O |
Nor pushed yourself within the reach | O |
Of retribution's accolade | B |
- | |
I had not had the will to go | P |
Outside the olive bordered path | Q |
Of peace to cut the birch of wrath | Q |
And strip your body for the blow | P |
- | |
Behold how dark the war clouds rise | R |
About the mother of our race | S |
The lightnings gild her tranquil face | S |
And glitter in her patient eyes | R |
- | |
Her children throng the hither flood | B |
And lean intent above the beach | O |
Their beating hearts inhibit speech | O |
With stifling tides of English blood | B |
- | |
'Their skies but not their hearts they change | T |
Who go in ships across the sea' | R |
Through all centuries to be | U |
The strange new land will still be strange | T |
- | |
The Island Mother holds in gage | V |
The souls of sons she never saw | R |
Superior to law the law | R |
Of sympathetic heritage | W |
- | |
Forgotten now the foolish reign | M |
Of wrath which sundered trivial ties | R |
A soldier's sabre vainly tries | R |
To cleave a spiritual chain | M |
- | |
The iron in our blood affines | R |
Though fratricidal hands may spill | X |
Shall Hate be throned on Bunker Hill | X |
Yet Love abide at Seven Pines | R |
Ambrose Bierce
(1)
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