Song Of America Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDEDFGHGIJKJFLMN HOPOQRMRASTSUVTVWXFX WYPYZSA2STIZIHB2QB2H C2TC2AVTVTTD2TTIE2IT F2TF2MG2A2G2TTTTTH2I 2H2J2ITIK2L2M2L2TN2O 2N2A2ZTZTP2HP2I2Q2FQ 2IVTVE2R2TR2S2GS2GA2 T2CT2TOTOTSHSA2ITIZG ZGAnd now when poets are singing | A |
Their songs of olden days | B |
And now when the land is ringing | A |
With sweet Centennial lays | B |
My muse goes wandering backward | C |
To the groundwork of all these | D |
To the time when our Pilgrim Fathers | E |
Came over the winter seas | D |
The sons of a mighty kingdom | F |
Of a cultured folk were they | G |
Born amidst pomp and splendor | H |
Bred in it day by day | G |
Children of bloom and beauty | I |
Reared under skies serene | J |
Where the daisy and hawthorne blossomed | K |
And the ivy was always green | J |
And yet for the sake of freedom | F |
For a free religious faith | L |
They turned from home and people | M |
And stood face to face with death | N |
They turned from a tyrant ruler | H |
And stood on the new world's shore | O |
With a waste of waters behind them | P |
And a waste of land before | O |
O men of a great Republic | Q |
Of a land of untold worth | R |
Of a nation that has no equal | M |
Upon God's round green earth | R |
I hear you sighing and crying | A |
Of the hard close times at hand | S |
What think you of those old heroes | T |
On the rock 'twixt sea and land | S |
The bells of a million churches | U |
Go ringing out to night | V |
And the glitter of palace windows | T |
Fills all the land with light | V |
And there is the home and college | W |
And here is the feast and ball | X |
And the angels of peace and freedom | F |
Are hovering over all | X |
They had no church no college | W |
No banks no mining stock | Y |
They had but the waste before them | P |
The sea and Plymouth Rock | Y |
But there in the night and tempest | Z |
With gloom on every hand | S |
They laid the first foundation | A2 |
Of a nation great and grand | S |
There were no weak repinings | T |
No shrinking from what might be | I |
But with their brows to the tempest | Z |
And with their backs to the sea | I |
They planned out a noble future | H |
And planted the corner stone | B2 |
Of the grandest greatest republic | Q |
The world has ever known | B2 |
O women in homes of splendor | H |
O lily buds frail and fair | C2 |
With fortunes upon your fingers | T |
And milk white pearls in your hair | C2 |
I hear you longing and sighing | A |
For some new fresh delight | V |
But what of those Pilgrim mothers | T |
On that December night | V |
I hear you talking of hardships | T |
I hear you moaning of loss | T |
Each has her fancied sorrow | D2 |
Each bears her self made cross | T |
But they they had only their husbands | T |
The rain the rock and the sea | I |
Yet they looked up to God and blessed Him | E2 |
And were glad because they were free | I |
O grand old Pilgrim heroes | T |
O souls that were tried and true | F2 |
With all of our proud possessions | T |
We are humbled at thought of you | F2 |
Men of such might and muscle | M |
Women so brave and strong | G2 |
Whose faith was fixed as the mountain | A2 |
Through a night so dark and long | G2 |
We know of your grim grave errors | T |
As husbands and as wives | T |
Of the rigid bleak ideas | T |
That starved your daily lives | T |
Of pent up curbed emotions | T |
Of feelings crushed suppressed | H2 |
That God with the heart created | I2 |
In every human breast | H2 |
We know of that little remnant | J2 |
Of British tyranny | I |
When you hunted Quakers and witches | T |
And swumg them from a tree | I |
Yet back to a holy motive | K2 |
To live in the fear of God | L2 |
To a purpose high exalted | M2 |
To walk where martyrs trod | L2 |
We can trace your gravest errors | T |
Your aim was fixed and sure | N2 |
And e'en if your acts were fanatic | O2 |
We know your hearts were pure | N2 |
You lived so near to heaven | A2 |
You over reached your trust | Z |
And deemed yourselves creators | T |
Forgetting you were but dust | Z |
But we with our broader visions | T |
With our wider realm of thought | P2 |
I often think would be better | H |
If we lived as our fathers taught | P2 |
Their lives seemed bleak and rigid | I2 |
Narrow and void of bloom | Q2 |
Our minds have too much freedom | F |
And conscience too much room | Q2 |
They over reached in duty | I |
They starved their hearts for the right | V |
We live too much in the senses | T |
We bask too long in the light | V |
They proved by their clinging to Him | E2 |
The image of God in man | R2 |
And we by our love of license | T |
Strengthen a Darwin's plan | R2 |
But bigotry reached its limit | S2 |
And license must have its sway | G |
And both shall result in profit | S2 |
To those of a latter day | G |
With the fetters of slavery broken | A2 |
And freedom's flag unfurled | T2 |
Our nation strides onward and upward | C |
And stands the peer of the world | T2 |
Spires and domes and steeples | T |
Glitter from shore to shore | O |
The waters are white with commerce | T |
The earth is studded with ore | O |
Peace is sitting above us | T |
And Plenty with laden hand | S |
Wedded to sturdy Labor | H |
Goes singing through the land | S |
Then let each child of the nation | A2 |
Who glories in being free | I |
Remember the Pilgrim Fathers | T |
Who stood on the rock by the sea | I |
For there in the rain and tempest | Z |
Of a night long passed away | G |
They sowed the seeds of a harvest | Z |
We gather in sheaves to day | G |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(1)
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