War Mothers Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AA BBCCAADDEDEFFGGHHIIA AJJ KKK LMMLNNONPP Q P RSSRTTU Q A VVVWXSSYZA2A2 B2B2B2C2D2ZE2E2Z F2F2| There is something in the sound of drum and fife | A |
| That stirs all the savage instincts into life | A |
| - | |
| In the old times of peace we went our ways | B |
| Through proper days | B |
| Of little joys and tasks Lonely at times | C |
| When from the steeple sounded wedding chimes | C |
| Telling to all the world some maid was wife | A |
| But taking patiently our part in life | A |
| As it was portioned us by Church and State | D |
| Believing it our fate | D |
| Our thoughts all chaste | E |
| Held yet a secret wish to love and mate | D |
| Ere youth and virtue should go quite to waste | E |
| But men we criticised for lack of strength | F |
| And kept them at arm's length | F |
| Then the war came | G |
| The world was all aflame | G |
| The men we had thought dull and void of power | H |
| Were heroes in an hour | H |
| He who had seemed a slave to petty greed | I |
| Showed masterful in that great time of need | I |
| He who had plotted for his neighbour's pelf | A |
| Now for his fellows offers up himself | A |
| And we were only women forced by war | J |
| To sacrifice the things worth living for | J |
| - | |
| Something within us broke | K |
| Something within us woke | K |
| The wild cave woman spoke | K |
| - | |
| When we heard the sound of drumming | L |
| As our soldiers went to camp | M |
| Heard them tramp tramp tramp | M |
| As we watched to see them coming | L |
| And they looked at us and smiled | N |
| Yes looked back at us and smiled | N |
| As they filed along by hillock and by hollow | O |
| Then our hearts were so beguiled | N |
| That for many and many a day | P |
| We dreamed we heard them say | P |
| 'Oh follow follow follow ' | - |
| And the distant rolling drum | Q |
| Called us 'Come come come ' | - |
| Till our virtue seemed a thing to give away | P |
| - | |
| War had swept ten thousand years away from earth | R |
| We were primal once again | S |
| There were males not modern men | S |
| We were females meant to bring their sons to birth | R |
| And we could not wait for any formal rite | T |
| We could hear them calling to us 'Come to night | T |
| For to morrow at the dawn | U |
| We move on ' | - |
| And the drum | Q |
| Bellowed 'Come come come ' | - |
| And the fife | A |
| Whistled 'Life life life ' | - |
| - | |
| So they moved on and fought and bled and died | V |
| Honoured and mourned they are the nation's pride | V |
| We fought our battles too but with the tide | V |
| Of our red blood we gave the world new lives | W |
| Because we were not wives | X |
| We are dishonoured Is it noble then | S |
| To break God's laws only by killing men | S |
| To save one's country from destruction | Y |
| We took no man's life but gave our chastity | Z |
| And sinned the ancient sin | A2 |
| To plant young trees and fill felled forests in | A2 |
| - | |
| Oh clergy of the land | B2 |
| Bible in hand | B2 |
| All reverently you stand | B2 |
| On holy thoughts intent | C2 |
| While barren wives receive the sacrament | D2 |
| Had you the open visions you could see | Z |
| Phantoms of infants murdered in the womb | E2 |
| Who never knew a cradle or a tomb | E2 |
| Hovering about these wives accusingly | Z |
| - | |
| Bestow the sacrament Their sins are not well known | F2 |
| Ours to the four winds of the earth are blown | F2 |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(1)
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