The South Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCC DEDEFF GHIHAA JKJKAA LMNMOO DPDDDD QRQSTT UJUJVV DWDWXY ZDZDA2A2Night and beneath star blazoned summer skies | A |
Behold the Spirit of the musky South | B |
A creole with still burning languid eyes | A |
Voluptuous limbs and incense breathing mouth | B |
Swathed in spun gauze is she | C |
From fibres of her own anana tree | C |
- | |
Within these sumptuous woods she lies at ease | D |
By rich night breezes dewy cool caressed | E |
'Twixt cypresses and slim palmetto trees | D |
Like to the golden oriole's hanging nest | E |
Her airy hammock swings | F |
And through the dark her mocking bird yet sings | F |
- | |
How beautiful she is A tulip wreath | G |
Twines round her shadowy free floating hair | H |
Young weary passionate and sad as death | I |
Dark visions haunt for her the vacant air | H |
While movelessly she lies | A |
With lithe lax folded hands and heavy eyes | A |
- | |
Full well knows she how wide and fair extend | J |
Her groves bright flowered her tangled everglades | K |
Majestic streams that indolently wend | J |
Through lush savanna or dense forest shades | K |
Where the brown buzzard flies | A |
To broad bayou 'neath hazy golden skies | A |
- | |
Hers is the savage splendor of the swamp | L |
With pomp of scarlet and of purple bloom | M |
Where blow warm furtive breezes faint and damp | N |
Strange insects whir and stalking bitterns boom | M |
Where from stale waters dead | O |
Oft looms the great jawed alligator's head | O |
- | |
Her wealth her beauty and the blight on these | D |
Of all she is aware luxuriant woods | P |
Fresh living sunlit in her dream she sees | D |
And ever midst those verdant solitudes | D |
The soldier's wooden cross | D |
O'ergrown by creeping tendrils and rank moss | D |
- | |
Was her a dream of empire was it sin | Q |
And is it well that all was borne in vain | R |
She knows no more than one who slow doth win | Q |
After fierce fever conscious life again | S |
Too tired too weak too sad | T |
By the new light to be stirred or glad | T |
- | |
From rich sea islands fringing her green shore | U |
From broad plantations where swart freemen bend | J |
Bronzed backs in willing labor from her store | U |
Of golden fruit from stream from town ascend | J |
Life currents of pure health | V |
Her aims shall be subserved with boundless wealth | V |
- | |
Yet now how listless and how still she lies | D |
Like some half savage dusky Indian queen | W |
Rocked in her hammock 'neath her native skies | D |
With the pathetic passive broken mien | W |
Of one who sorely proved | X |
Great souled hath suffered much and much hath loved | Y |
- | |
But look along the wide branched dewy glade | Z |
Glimmers the dawn the light palmetto trees | D |
And cypresses reissue from the shade | Z |
And SHE hath wakened Through clear air she sees | D |
The pledge the brightening ray | A2 |
And leaps from dreams to hail the coming day | A2 |
Emma Lazarus
(1)
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