Toward The Gulf Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHIJKLJMNOOOPOO OJLQO OOOROJJSTQJ UJOVJJOOSOOSOOOL OOWOOOPXOOOJOWOOOOOY LJOOJOOLOOJOQJOYOO ZTJJA2OOB2JLOC2OLOO OOQOUOOOOOOOLOLOLO OOOJOZOJD2JLOOXE2LJO OF2OJJG2OJOH2JOOOJI2 OJOJOOO OLJ2OOOJOQJXK2JOO QZL2T OLOOOOXOM2JWJJLO JN2JJO2D2JOOLOP2OOOL JM2LLON2JJ OON2Q2OOL2R2N2N2N2S2 T2OOLOOJ JOOTN2LN2OOOOK2LOLK2 M2LK2JON2 LON2OJD2N2OOON2K2U2Z OOV2OOO OLDedicated to Theodore Roosevelt | A |
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From the Cordilleran Highlands | B |
From the Height of Land | C |
Far north | D |
From the Lake of the Woods | E |
From Rainy Lake | F |
From Itasca's springs | G |
From the snow and the ice | H |
Of the mountains | I |
Breathed on by the sun | J |
And given life | K |
Awakened by kisses of fire | L |
Moving gliding as brightest hyaline | J |
Down the cliffs | M |
Down the hills | N |
Over the stones | O |
Trickling as rills | O |
Swiftly running as mountain brooks | O |
Swirling through runnels of rock | P |
Curving in spher d silence | O |
Around the long worn walls of granite gorges | O |
Storming through chasms | O |
And flowing for miles in quiet over the Titan basin | J |
To the muddled waters of the mighty river | L |
Himself obeying the call of the gulf | Q |
And the unfathomed urge of the sea | O |
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Waters of mountain peaks | O |
Spirits of liberty | O |
Leaving your pure retreats | O |
For work in the world | R |
Soiling your crystal springs | O |
With the waste that is whirled to your breast as you run | J |
Until you are foul as the crawling leviathan | J |
That devours you | S |
And uses you to carry waste and earth | T |
For the making of land at the gulf | Q |
For the conquest of land for the feet of men | J |
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De Soto Marquette and La Salle | U |
Planting your cross in vain | J |
Gaining neither gold nor ivory | O |
Nor tribute | V |
For France or Spain | J |
Making land alone | J |
For liberty | O |
You could proclaim in the name of the cross | O |
The dominion of kings over a world that was new | S |
But the river has altered its course | O |
There are fertile fields | O |
For a thousand miles where the river flowed that you knew | S |
And there are liberty and democracy | O |
For thousands of miles | O |
Where in the name of kings and for the cross | O |
You tramped the tangles for treasure | L |
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The Falls of St Anthony tumble the waters | O |
In laughter and tumult and roaring of voices | O |
Swirling dancing leaping foaming | W |
Spirits of caverns of canyons and gorges | O |
Waters tinctured by star lights sweetened by breezes | O |
Blown over snows out of the rosy northlands | O |
Through forests of pine and hemlock | P |
Whisperings of the Pacific grown symphonic | X |
Voices of freedom restless unconquered | O |
Mad with divinity fearless and free | O |
Hunters and choppers warriors revelers | O |
Laughers dancers fiddlers freemen | J |
Climbing the crests of the Alleghenies | O |
Singing chopping hunting fighting | W |
Erupting into Kentucky and Tennessee | O |
Into Ohio Indiana Illinois | O |
Sweeping away the waste of the Indians | O |
As the river carries mud for the making of land | O |
And taking the land of Illinois from kings | O |
And handing its allegiance to the Republic | Y |
What riflemen with Daniel Boone for leader | L |
And conquerors with Clark for captain | J |
Plunge down like melted snows | O |
The rocks and chasms of forbidden mountains | O |
And make more land for freemen | J |
Clear eyed hard muscled dauntless hunters | O |
Choppers of forests and tillers of fields | O |
Meet at last in a field of snow white clover | L |
To make wise laws for states | O |
And to teach their sons of the new West | O |
That suffrage is the right of freemen | J |
Until the lion of Tennessee | O |
Who crushes king craft near the gulf | Q |
Where La Salle proclaimed the crown | J |
And the cross | O |
Is made the ruler of the republic | Y |
By freeman suffragans | O |
And winners of the West | O |
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Father of Waters Ever recurring symbol of wider freedom | Z |
Even to the ocean girdled earth | T |
The out worn rule of Florida rots your domain | J |
But the lion of Tennessee asks Would you take from Spain | J |
The land she has lost but in name | A2 |
It shall be done in a month if you loose my sword | O |
It was done as he said | O |
And the sick and drunken power of Spain that clung | B2 |
And sucked at the life of Chile Peru Argentina | J |
Loosened under the blows of San Martin and Bolivar | L |
Breathing the lightning thrown by Napoleon the Great | O |
On the thrones of Europe | C2 |
Father of Waters 'twas you who made us say | O |
No kings this side of the earth forever | L |
One half of the earth shall be free | O |
By our word and the might that is back of our word | O |
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The falls of St Anthony tumble the waters | O |
In laughter and tumult and roaring of voices | O |
And the river moves in its winding channel toward the gulf | Q |
Over the breast of De Soto | O |
By the swamp grave of La Salle | U |
The old days sleep the lion of Tennessee sleeps | O |
With Daniel Boone and the hunters | O |
The rifle men the revelers | O |
The laughers and dancers and choppers | O |
Who climbed the crests of the Alleghenies | O |
And poured themselves into Tennessee Ohio | O |
Kentucky Illinois the bountiful West | O |
But the river never sleeps the river flows forever | L |
Making land forever reclaiming the wastes of the sea | O |
And the race never sleeps the race moves on forever | L |
And wars must come as the waters must sweep away | O |
Drift wood dead wood choking the strength of the river | L |
For Liberty never sleeps | O |
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The lion of Tennessee sleeps | O |
And over the graves of the hunters and choppers | O |
The tramp of troops is heard | O |
There is war again | J |
O Father of Waters | O |
There is war O symbol of freedom | Z |
They have chained your giant strength for the cause | O |
Of trade in men | J |
But a man of the West a denizen of your shore | D2 |
Wholly American | J |
Compact clear eyed nerved like a hunter | L |
Who knew no faster beat of the heart | O |
Except in charity forgiveness peace | O |
Generous plain democratic | X |
Scarcely appraising himself at full | E2 |
A spiritual rifleman and chopper | L |
Of the breed of Daniel Boone | J |
This man your child O Father of Waters | O |
Waked from the winter sleep of a useless day | O |
By the rising sun of a Freedom bright and strong | F2 |
Slipped like the loosened snows of your mountain streams | O |
Into a channel of fate as sure as your own | J |
A fate which said till the thing be done | J |
Turn not back nor stop | G2 |
Ulysses of the great Atlantis | O |
Wholly American | J |
Patient silent tireless watchful undismayed | O |
Grant at Fort Donelson Grant at Vicksburg | H2 |
Leading the sons of choppers and riflemen | J |
Pushing on as the hunters and farmers | O |
Poured from the mountains into the West | O |
Freed you Father of Waters | O |
To flow to the Gulf and be one | J |
With the earth engirdled tides of time | I2 |
And gave us states made ready for the hands | O |
Wholly American | J |
Hunters choppers tillers fighters | O |
For epochs vast and new | J |
In Truth in Liberty | O |
Posters from land to land and sea to sea | O |
Till all the earth be free | O |
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Ulysses of the great Atlantis | O |
Dream not of disaster | L |
Sleep the sleep of the brave | J2 |
In your couch afar from the Father of Waters | O |
A new Ulysses arises | O |
Who turns not back nor stops | O |
Till the thing is done | J |
He cuts with one stroke of the sword | O |
The stubborn neck that keeps the Gulf | Q |
And the Caribbean | J |
From the luring Pacific | X |
Roosevelt the hunter the pioneer | K2 |
Wholly American | J |
Winner of greater wests | O |
Till all the earth be free | O |
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And forever as long as the river flows toward the Gulf | Q |
Ulysses reincarnate shall come | Z |
To guard our places of sleep | L2 |
Till East and West shall be one in the west of heaven and earth | T |
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In an old print | O |
I see a thicket of masts on the river | L |
But in the prints to be | O |
There will be lake boats | O |
With port holes funnels rows of decks | O |
Huddled like swans by the docks | O |
Under the shadows of cliffs of brick | X |
And who will know from the prints to be | O |
When the Albatross and the Golden Eagle | M2 |
The flying craft which shall carry the vision | J |
Of impatient lovers wounded by Spring | W |
To the shaded rivers of Michigan | J |
That it was the Missouri the Iowa | J |
And the City of Benton Harbor | L |
Which lay huddled like swans by the docks | O |
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You are not Lake Leman | J |
Walled in by Mt Blanc | N2 |
One sees the whole world round you | J |
And beyond you Lake Michigan | J |
And when the melodious winds of March | O2 |
Wrinkle you and drive on the shore | D2 |
The serpent rifts of sand and snow | J |
And sway the giant limbs of oaks | O |
Longing to bud | O |
The boats put forth for the ports that began to stir | L |
With the creak of reels unwinding the nets | O |
And the ring of the caulking wedge | P2 |
But in the June days | O |
The Alabama ploughs through liquid tons | O |
Of sapphire waves | O |
She sinks from hills to valleys of water | L |
And rises again | J |
Like a swimming gull | M2 |
I wish a hundred years to come and forever | L |
All lovers could know the rapture | L |
Of the lake boats sailing the first Spring days | O |
To coverts of hepatica | N2 |
With the whole world sphering round you | J |
And the whole of the sky beyond you | J |
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I knew the captain of the City of Grand Rapids | O |
He had sailed the seas as a boy | O |
And he stood on deck against the railing | N2 |
Puffing a cigar | Q2 |
Showing in his eyes the cinema flash of the sun on the waves | O |
It was June and life was easy | O |
One could lie on deck and sleep | L2 |
Or sit in the sun and dream | R2 |
People were walking the decks and talking | N2 |
Children were singing | N2 |
And down on the purser's deck | N2 |
A man was dancing by himself | S2 |
Whirling around like a dervish | T2 |
And this captain said to me | O |
No life is better than this | O |
I could live forever | L |
And do nothing but run this boat | O |
From the dock at Chicago to the dock at Holland | O |
And back again | J |
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One time I went to Grand Haven | J |
On the Alabama with Charley Shippey | O |
It was dawn but white dawn only | O |
Under the reign of Leucothea | T |
As we volplaned so it seemed from the lake | N2 |
Past the lighthouse into the river | L |
And afterward laughing and talking | N2 |
Hurried to Van Dreezer's restaurant | O |
For breakfast | O |
Charley knew him and talked of things | O |
Unknown to me as he cooked the breakfast | O |
Then we fished the mile's length of the pier | K2 |
In a gale full of warmth and moisture | L |
Which blew the gulls about like confetti | O |
And flapped like a flag the linen duster | L |
Of a fisherman who paced the pier | K2 |
Charley called him Rip Van Winkle | M2 |
The only thing that could be better | L |
Than this day on the pier | K2 |
Would be its counterpart in heaven | J |
As Swedenborg would say | O |
Charley is fishing somewhere now I think | N2 |
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There is a grove of oaks on a bluff by the river | L |
At Berrien Springs | O |
There is a cottage that eyes the lake | N2 |
Between pines and silver birches | O |
At South Haven | J |
There is the inviolable wonder of wooded shore | D2 |
Curving for miles at Saugatuck | N2 |
And at Holland a beach like Scheveningen's | O |
And at Charlevoix the sudden quaintness | O |
Of an old world place by the sea | O |
There are the hills around Elk Lake | N2 |
Where the blue of the sky is so still and clear | K2 |
It seems it was rubbed above them | U2 |
By the swipe of a giant thumb | Z |
And beyond these the little Traverse Bay | O |
Where the roar of the breeze goes round | O |
Like a roulette ball in the groove of the wheel | V2 |
Circling the bay | O |
And beyond these Mackinac and the Cheneaux Islands | O |
And beyond these a great mystery | O |
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Neither ice floes nor winter's palsy | O |
Stays the tide in the river | L |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
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