Canticle Of The Race Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A ABCBCBCBCB BDBEDEDE FGDHDHDHDG AFIFIAJDJDJD K KBBBBB BDBLDLDL MNBBBBBBBN OEGEGOPQGQGQ D DRSRSRSR TUTMUMUM DDGDGDGD DDVDVDWDVDDDSong Of Men | A |
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How beautiful are the bodies of men | A |
The agonists | B |
Their hearts beat deep as a brazen gong | C |
For their strength's behests | B |
Their arms are lithe as a seasoned thong | C |
In games or tests | B |
When they run or box or swim the long | C |
Sea waves crests | B |
With their slender legs and their hips so strong | C |
And their rounded chests | B |
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I know a youth who raises his arms | B |
Over his head | D |
He laughs and stretches and flouts alarms | B |
Of flood or fire | E |
He springs renewed from a lusty bed | D |
To his youth's desire | E |
He drowses for April flames outspread | D |
In his soul's attire | E |
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The strength of men is for husbandry | F |
Of woman's flesh | G |
Worker soldier magistrate | D |
Of city or realm | H |
Artist builder wrestling Fate | D |
Lest it overwhelm | H |
The brood or the race or the cherished state | D |
They sing at the helm | H |
When the waters roar and the waves are great | D |
And the gale is fresh | G |
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There are two miracles women and men | A |
Yea four there be | F |
A woman's flesh and the strength of a man | I |
And God's decree | F |
And a babe from the womb in a little span | I |
Ere the month be ten | A |
Their rapturous arms entwine and cling | J |
In the depths of night | D |
He hunts for her face for his wondering | J |
And her eyes are bright | D |
A woman's flesh is soil but the spring | J |
Is man's delight | D |
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Song Of Women | K |
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How beautiful is the flesh of women | K |
Their throats their breasts | B |
My wonder is a flame which burns | B |
A flame which rests | B |
It is a flame which no wind turns | B |
And a flame which quests | B |
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I know a woman who has red lips | B |
Like coals which are fanned | D |
Her throat is tied narcissus it dips | B |
From her white rose chin | L |
Her throat curves like a cloud to the land | D |
Where her breasts begin | L |
I close my eyes when I put my hand | D |
On her breast's white skin | L |
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The flesh of women is like the sky | M |
When bare is the moon | N |
Rhythm of backs hollow of necks | B |
And sea shell loins | B |
I know a woman whose splendors vex | B |
Where the flesh joins | B |
A slope of light and a circumflex | B |
Of clefts and coigns | B |
She thrills like the air when silence wrecks | B |
An ended tune | N |
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These are the things not made by hands in the earth | O |
Water and fire | E |
The air of heaven and springs afresh | G |
And love's desire | E |
And a thing not made is a woman's flesh | G |
Sorrow and mirth | O |
She tightens the strings on the lyric lyre | P |
And she drips the wine | Q |
Her breasts bud out as pink and nesh | G |
As buds on the vine | Q |
For fire and water and air are flesh | G |
And love is the shrine | Q |
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Song Of The Human Spirit | D |
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How beautiful is the human spirit | D |
In its vase of clay | R |
It takes no thought of the chary dole | S |
Of the light of day | R |
It labors and loves as it were a soul | S |
Whom the gods repay | R |
With length of life and a golden goal | S |
At the end of the way | R |
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There are souls I know who arch a dome | T |
And tunnel a hill | U |
They chisel in marble and fashion in chrome | T |
And measure the sky | M |
They find the good and destroy the ill | U |
And they bend and ply | M |
The laws of nature out of a will | U |
While the fates deny | M |
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I wonder and worship the human spirit | D |
When I behold | D |
Numbers and symbols and how they reach | G |
Through steel and gold | D |
A harp a battle ship thought and speech | G |
And an hour foretold | D |
It ponders its nature to turn and teach | G |
And itself to mould | D |
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The human spirit is God no doubt | D |
Is flesh made the word | D |
Jesus Beethoven and Raphael | V |
And the souls who heard | D |
Beyond the rim of the world the swell | V |
Of an ocean stirred | D |
By a Power on the waters inscrutable | W |
There are souls who gird | D |
Their loins in faith that the world is well | V |
In a faith unblurred | D |
How beautiful is the human spirit | D |
The flesh made the word | D |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
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