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 3DT2I3WL2I3I3Though for your sake I would not have you now | A |
So near to me tonight as now you are | B |
God knows how much a stranger to my heart | C |
Was any cold word that I may have written | D |
And you poor woman that I made my wife | E |
You have had more of loneliness I fear | F |
Than I though I have been the most alone | G |
Even when the most attended So it was | H |
God set the mark of his inscrutable | I |
Necessity on one that was to grope | J |
And serve and suffer and withal be glad | K |
For what was his and is and is to be | L |
When his old bones that are a burden now | A |
Are saying what the man who carried them | M |
Had not the power to say Bones in a grave | N |
Cover them as they will with choking earth | O |
May shout the truth to men who put them there | P |
More than all orators And so my dear | F |
Since you have cheated wisdom for the sake | Q |
Of sorrow let your sorrow be for you | R |
This last of nights before the last of days | S |
The lying ghost of what there is of me | L |
That is the most alive There is no death | T |
For me in what they do Their death it is | U |
They should heed most when the sun comes again | V |
To make them solemn There are some I know | W |
Whose eyes will hardly see their occupation | D |
For tears in them and all for one old man | X |
For some of them will pity this old man | X |
Who took upon himself the work of God | Y |
Because he pitied millions That will be | L |
For them I fancy their compassionate | Z |
Best way of saying what is best in them | M |
To say for they can say no more than that | A2 |
And they can do no more than what the dawn | B2 |
Of one more day shall give them light enough | C2 |
To do But there are many days to be | L |
And there are many men to give their blood | D2 |
As I gave mine for them May they come soon | E2 |
- | |
May they come soon I say And when they come | F2 |
May all that I have said unheard be heard | G2 |
Proving at last or maybe not no matter | H2 |
What sort of madness was the part of me | L |
That made me strike whether I found the mark | I2 |
Or missed it Meanwhile I've a strange content | J2 |
A patience and a vast indifference | K2 |
To what men say of me and what men fear | F |
To say There was a work to be begun | D |
And when the Voice that I have heard so long | L2 |
Announced as in a thousand silences | U |
An end of preparation I began | X |
The coming work of death which is to be | L |
That life may be There is no other way | M2 |
Than the old way of war for a new land | N2 |
That will not know itself and is tonight | O2 |
A stranger to itself and to the world | P2 |
A more prodigious upstart among states | Q2 |
Than I was among men and so shall be | L |
Till they are told and told and told again | V |
For men are children waiting to be told | R2 |
And most of them are children all their lives | S2 |
The good God in his wisdom had them so | W |
That now and then a madman or a seer | T2 |
May shake them out of their complacency | L |
And shame them into deeds The major file | U2 |
See only what their fathers may have seen | V2 |
Or may have said they saw when they saw nothing | W2 |
I do not say it matters what they saw | X2 |
Now and again to some lone soul or other | H2 |
God speaks and there is hanging to be done | D |
As once there was a burning of our bodies | Y2 |
Alive albeit our souls were sorry fuel | I |
But now the fires are few and we are poised | Z2 |
Accordingly for the state's benefit | A3 |
A few still minutes between heaven and earth | O |
The purpose is when they have seen enough | C2 |
Of what it is that they are not to see | L |
To pluck me as an unripe fruit of treason | D |
And then to fling me back to the same earth | O |
Of which they are as I suppose the flower | H2 |
Not given to know the riper fruit that waits | Q2 |
For a more comprehensive harvesting | W2 |
- | |
Yes may they come and soon Again I say | M2 |
May they come soon before too many of them | M |
Shall be the bloody cost of our defection | D |
When hell waits on the dawn of a new state | B3 |
Better it were that hell should not wait long | L2 |
Or so it is I see it who should see | L |
As far or farther into time tonight | O2 |
Than they who talk and tremble for me now | A |
Or wish me to those everlasting fires | C3 |
That are for me no fear Too many fires | C3 |
Have sought me out and seared me to the bone | G |
Thereby for all I know to temper me | L |
For what was mine to do If I did ill | D3 |
What I did well let men say I was mad | K |
Or let my name for ever be a question | D |
That will not sleep in history What men say | M2 |
I was will cool no cannon dull no sword | E3 |
Invalidate no truth Meanwhile I was | H |
And the long train is lighted that shall burn | F3 |
Though floods of wrath may drench it and hot feet | G3 |
May stamp it for a slight time into smoke | H3 |
That shall blaze up again with growing speed | I3 |
Until at last a fiery crash will come | F2 |
To cleanse and shake a wounded hemisphere | F |
And heal it of a long malignity | I3 |
That angry time discredits and disowns | H |
Tonight there are men saying many things | H |
And some who see life in the last of me | L |
Will answer first the coming call to death | T |
For death is what is coming and then life | E |
I do not say again for the dull sake | Q |
Of speech what you have heard me say before | J3 |
But rather for the sake of all I am | K3 |
And all God made of me A man to die | I3 |
As I do must have done some other work | L3 |
Than man's alone I was not after glory | L |
But there was glory with me like a friend | I3 |
Throughout those crippling years when friends were few | R |
And fearful to be known by their own names | H |
When mine was vilified for their approval | I |
Yet friends they are and they did what was given | D |
Their will to do they could have done no more | J3 |
I was the one man mad enough it seems | H |
To do my work and now my work is over | H2 |
And you my dear are not to mourn for me | L |
Or for your sons more than a soul should mourn | M3 |
In Paradise done with evil and with earth | O |
There is not much of earth in what remains | H |
For you and what there may be left of it | I3 |
For your endurance you shall have at last | I3 |
In peace without the twinge of any fear | F |
For my condition for I shall be done | D |
With plans and actions that have heretofore | J3 |
Made your days long and your nights ominous | H |
With darkness and the many distances | H |
That were between us When the silence comes | H |
I shall in faith be nearer to you then | V |
Than I am now in fact What you see now | A |
Is only the outside of an old man | X |
Older than years have made him Let him die | I3 |
And let him be a thing for little grief | N3 |
There was a time for service and he served | I3 |
And there is no more time for anything | W2 |
But a short gratefulness to those who gave | N |
Their scared allegiance to an enterprise | H |
That has the name of treason which will serve | O3 |
As well as any other for the present | I3 |
There are some deeds of men that have no names | H |
And mine may like as not be one of them | M |
I am not looking far for names tonight | I3 |
The King of Glory was without a name | P3 |
Until men gave him one yet there He was | H |
Before we found Him and affronted Him | Q3 |
With numerous ingenuities of evil | I |
Of which one with His aid is to be swept | I3 |
And washed out of the world with fire and blood | I3 |
- | |
Once I believed it might have come to pass | H |
With a small cost of blood but I was dreaming | W2 |
Dreaming that I believed The Voice I heard | I3 |
When I left you behind me in the north | R3 |
To wait there and to wonder and grow old | I3 |
Of loneliness told only what was best | I3 |
And with a saving vagueness I should know | W |
Till I knew more And had I known even then | V |
After grim years of search and suffering | W2 |
So many of them to end as they began | X |
After my sickening doubts and estimations | H |
Of plans abandoned and of new plans vain | S3 |
After a weary delving everywhere | P |
For men with every virtue but the Vision | D |
Could I have known I say before I left you | R |
That summer morning all there was to know | W |
Even unto the last consuming word | I3 |
That would have blasted every mortal answer | H2 |
As lightning would annihilate a leaf | N3 |
I might have trembled on that summer morning | W2 |
I might have wavered and I might have failed | I3 |
- | |
And there are many among men today | I3 |
To say of me that I had best have wavered | I3 |
So has it been so shall it always be | L |
For those of us who give ourselves to die | I3 |
Before we are so parcelled and approved | I3 |
As to be slaughtered by authority | L |
We do not make so much of what they say | I3 |
As they of what our folly says of us | H |
They give us hardly time enough for that | I3 |
And thereby we gain much by losing little | I |
Few are alive to day with less to lose | H |
Than I who tell you this or more to gain | S3 |
And whether I speak as one to be destroyed | I3 |
For no good end outside his own destruction | D |
Time shall have more to say than men shall hear | T2 |
Between now and the coming of that harvest | I3 |
Which is to come Before it comes I go | W |
By the short road that mystery makes long | L2 |
For man's endurance of accomplishment | I3 |
I shall have more to say when I am dead | I3 |
Edwin Arlington Robinson
(1)
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