The Black Sheep Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AA BBBBBBCCDDEEF GGHHIIJ JKKLLMNBBBOOPQRRSSTU VVGW| 'Black sheep black sheep have you any wool ' | A |
| 'Yes sir yes sir three bags full ' | A |
| - | |
| 'I don't want any New Thought ' said he | B |
| 'Or any Theosophy for you see | B |
| The faith I learned at my mother's knee | B |
| Is good enough for me | B |
| Of course I'm a wee bit broader than she | B |
| Hearing one sermon where she heard three | B |
| And I read my paper on Sunday instead | C |
| Of the Bible only My mother said | C |
| I was a black sheep when she saw | D |
| I strayed a trifle away from the law | D |
| And didn't think everyone left in the lurch | E |
| Who happened to go to a different church | E |
| But still in the main her creed is mine | F |
| And I don't want anything more divine ' | - |
| Yet his mother's mother was more austere | G |
| She taught her children a creed of fear | G |
| And she called them 'black sheep' when with a shock | H |
| She saw them straying away from the flock | H |
| Just far enough | I |
| To get around places they thought too rough | I |
| Like infant damnation and endless hell | J |
| - | |
| - | |
| But his mother's mother's mother would tell | J |
| How her mother thought it was God's sweet will | K |
| To punish and torture a heretic till | K |
| They drove out the devil that made him dare | L |
| Think for himself in the matter of prayer | L |
| And faith and salvation So we see how it is | M |
| If we look back over the centuries | N |
| The creeds men learned at their mother's knee | B |
| When Salem witches were hanged to a tree | B |
| And the pious dames flocked thither to see | B |
| Are not deemed Christian or holy to day | O |
| And the bold black sheep who went straying away | O |
| From rut worn paths in their search for God | P |
| And leaped over the fence into pastures broad | Q |
| Are the great trail makers for mortal souls | R |
| Leading the race up to higher goals | R |
| And a larger religion where man must find | S |
| God dwelling ever within his mind | S |
| Christ in his conduct and heaven in his thought | T |
| And hell but the places where love is not | U |
| A mighty religion that makes this earth | V |
| But the cradle that fits us for death's new birth | V |
| And the life beyond it that is so near | G |
| Its echoes may reach to the listening ear | W |
| - | |
| 'Black sheep black sheep have you any wool ' | - |
| 'Yes sir yes sir a whole world full ' | - |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
About The Black Sheep
The Black Sheep is a poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
Write your comment about The Black Sheep poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Best Poems of Ella Wheeler Wilcox