John Brown Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLAMNOPFQR SLTUVWDXXYLZMA2B2C2L D2E2 F2G2H2LI2J2K2FDL2UXL M2N2O2P2Q2LVR2S2WT2L U2V2W2X2H2DY2IZ2A3OC 2LDOH2Q2W2 M2MDB3L2LO2AC3C3GLD3 KDM2E3HF3G3H3I3F2FI3 HHLTEQJ3K3I3L3LI3RHI DJ3HH2LM3OHI3I3FDJ3H HHVAXI3N3I3W2NHO3I3H MI3P3HQ3II3I3 HW2I3R3I3I3WVW2XHS3P DRWI3H2N3W2I3 I3I3LI3I3LI3HI3IHS3I 3DT2I3WL2I3I3

Though for your sake I would not have you nowA
So near to me tonight as now you areB
God knows how much a stranger to my heartC
Was any cold word that I may have writtenD
And you poor woman that I made my wifeE
You have had more of loneliness I fearF
Than I though I have been the most aloneG
Even when the most attended So it wasH
God set the mark of his inscrutableI
Necessity on one that was to gropeJ
And serve and suffer and withal be gladK
For what was his and is and is to beL
When his old bones that are a burden nowA
Are saying what the man who carried themM
Had not the power to say Bones in a graveN
Cover them as they will with choking earthO
May shout the truth to men who put them thereP
More than all orators And so my dearF
Since you have cheated wisdom for the sakeQ
Of sorrow let your sorrow be for youR
This last of nights before the last of daysS
The lying ghost of what there is of meL
That is the most alive There is no deathT
For me in what they do Their death it isU
They should heed most when the sun comes againV
To make them solemn There are some I knowW
Whose eyes will hardly see their occupationD
For tears in them and all for one old manX
For some of them will pity this old manX
Who took upon himself the work of GodY
Because he pitied millions That will beL
For them I fancy their compassionateZ
Best way of saying what is best in themM
To say for they can say no more than thatA2
And they can do no more than what the dawnB2
Of one more day shall give them light enoughC2
To do But there are many days to beL
And there are many men to give their bloodD2
As I gave mine for them May they come soonE2
-
May they come soon I say And when they comeF2
May all that I have said unheard be heardG2
Proving at last or maybe not no matterH2
What sort of madness was the part of meL
That made me strike whether I found the markI2
Or missed it Meanwhile I've a strange contentJ2
A patience and a vast indifferenceK2
To what men say of me and what men fearF
To say There was a work to be begunD
And when the Voice that I have heard so longL2
Announced as in a thousand silencesU
An end of preparation I beganX
The coming work of death which is to beL
That life may be There is no other wayM2
Than the old way of war for a new landN2
That will not know itself and is tonightO2
A stranger to itself and to the worldP2
A more prodigious upstart among statesQ2
Than I was among men and so shall beL
Till they are told and told and told againV
For men are children waiting to be toldR2
And most of them are children all their livesS2
The good God in his wisdom had them soW
That now and then a madman or a seerT2
May shake them out of their complacencyL
And shame them into deeds The major fileU2
See only what their fathers may have seenV2
Or may have said they saw when they saw nothingW2
I do not say it matters what they sawX2
Now and again to some lone soul or otherH2
God speaks and there is hanging to be doneD
As once there was a burning of our bodiesY2
Alive albeit our souls were sorry fuelI
But now the fires are few and we are poisedZ2
Accordingly for the state's benefitA3
A few still minutes between heaven and earthO
The purpose is when they have seen enoughC2
Of what it is that they are not to seeL
To pluck me as an unripe fruit of treasonD
And then to fling me back to the same earthO
Of which they are as I suppose the flowerH2
Not given to know the riper fruit that waitsQ2
For a more comprehensive harvestingW2
-
Yes may they come and soon Again I sayM2
May they come soon before too many of themM
Shall be the bloody cost of our defectionD
When hell waits on the dawn of a new stateB3
Better it were that hell should not wait longL2
Or so it is I see it who should seeL
As far or farther into time tonightO2
Than they who talk and tremble for me nowA
Or wish me to those everlasting firesC3
That are for me no fear Too many firesC3
Have sought me out and seared me to the boneG
Thereby for all I know to temper meL
For what was mine to do If I did illD3
What I did well let men say I was madK
Or let my name for ever be a questionD
That will not sleep in history What men sayM2
I was will cool no cannon dull no swordE3
Invalidate no truth Meanwhile I wasH
And the long train is lighted that shall burnF3
Though floods of wrath may drench it and hot feetG3
May stamp it for a slight time into smokeH3
That shall blaze up again with growing speedI3
Until at last a fiery crash will comeF2
To cleanse and shake a wounded hemisphereF
And heal it of a long malignityI3
That angry time discredits and disownsH
Tonight there are men saying many thingsH
And some who see life in the last of meL
Will answer first the coming call to deathT
For death is what is coming and then lifeE
I do not say again for the dull sakeQ
Of speech what you have heard me say beforeJ3
But rather for the sake of all I amK3
And all God made of me A man to dieI3
As I do must have done some other workL3
Than man's alone I was not after gloryL
But there was glory with me like a friendI3
Throughout those crippling years when friends were fewR
And fearful to be known by their own namesH
When mine was vilified for their approvalI
Yet friends they are and they did what was givenD
Their will to do they could have done no moreJ3
I was the one man mad enough it seemsH
To do my work and now my work is overH2
And you my dear are not to mourn for meL
Or for your sons more than a soul should mournM3
In Paradise done with evil and with earthO
There is not much of earth in what remainsH
For you and what there may be left of itI3
For your endurance you shall have at lastI3
In peace without the twinge of any fearF
For my condition for I shall be doneD
With plans and actions that have heretoforeJ3
Made your days long and your nights ominousH
With darkness and the many distancesH
That were between us When the silence comesH
I shall in faith be nearer to you thenV
Than I am now in fact What you see nowA
Is only the outside of an old manX
Older than years have made him Let him dieI3
And let him be a thing for little griefN3
There was a time for service and he servedI3
And there is no more time for anythingW2
But a short gratefulness to those who gaveN
Their scared allegiance to an enterpriseH
That has the name of treason which will serveO3
As well as any other for the presentI3
There are some deeds of men that have no namesH
And mine may like as not be one of themM
I am not looking far for names tonightI3
The King of Glory was without a nameP3
Until men gave him one yet there He wasH
Before we found Him and affronted HimQ3
With numerous ingenuities of evilI
Of which one with His aid is to be sweptI3
And washed out of the world with fire and bloodI3
-
Once I believed it might have come to passH
With a small cost of blood but I was dreamingW2
Dreaming that I believed The Voice I heardI3
When I left you behind me in the northR3
To wait there and to wonder and grow oldI3
Of loneliness told only what was bestI3
And with a saving vagueness I should knowW
Till I knew more And had I known even thenV
After grim years of search and sufferingW2
So many of them to end as they beganX
After my sickening doubts and estimationsH
Of plans abandoned and of new plans vainS3
After a weary delving everywhereP
For men with every virtue but the VisionD
Could I have known I say before I left youR
That summer morning all there was to knowW
Even unto the last consuming wordI3
That would have blasted every mortal answerH2
As lightning would annihilate a leafN3
I might have trembled on that summer morningW2
I might have wavered and I might have failedI3
-
And there are many among men todayI3
To say of me that I had best have waveredI3
So has it been so shall it always beL
For those of us who give ourselves to dieI3
Before we are so parcelled and approvedI3
As to be slaughtered by authorityL
We do not make so much of what they sayI3
As they of what our folly says of usH
They give us hardly time enough for thatI3
And thereby we gain much by losing littleI
Few are alive to day with less to loseH
Than I who tell you this or more to gainS3
And whether I speak as one to be destroyedI3
For no good end outside his own destructionD
Time shall have more to say than men shall hearT2
Between now and the coming of that harvestI3
Which is to come Before it comes I goW
By the short road that mystery makes longL2
For man's endurance of accomplishmentI3
I shall have more to say when I am deadI3

Edwin Arlington Robinson



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