Moses: A Story Of The Nile (extract) Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGAHIJAKLMNOPPP PQRSTUMPGVWXPP YZQOA2B2QPQPC2PPQQPD 2B2RE2F2B2QNG2Moses sought again the presence of the king | A |
And Pharaoh's brow grew dark with wrath | B |
And rising up in angry haste he said | C |
Defiantly 'If thy God be great show | D |
Us some sign or token of his power ' | E |
Then Moses threw his rod upon the floor | F |
And it trembled with a sign of life | G |
The dark wood glowed then changed into a thing | A |
Of glistening scales and golden rings and green | H |
And brown and purple stripes a hissing hateful | I |
Thing that glared its fiery eye and darting forth | J |
From Moses' side lay coiled and panting | A |
At the monarch's feet With wonder open eyed | K |
The king gazed on the changed rod then called | L |
For his magicians wily men well versed | M |
In sinful lore and bade them do the same | N |
And they leagued with the powers of night did | O |
Also change their rods to serpents then Moses' | P |
Serpent darted forth and with a startling hiss | P |
And angry gulp he swallowed the living things | P |
That coiled along his path And thus did Moses | P |
Show that Israel's God had greater power | Q |
Than those dark sons of night | R |
But not by this alone | S |
Did God his mighty power reveal He changed | T |
Their waters every fountain well and pool | U |
Was red with blood and lips all parched with thirst | M |
Shrank back in horror from the crimson draughts | P |
And then the worshiped Nile grew full of life | G |
Millions of frogs swarmed from the stream they clogged | V |
The pathway of the priests and filled the sacred | W |
Fanes and crowded into Pharaoh's bed and hopped | X |
Into his trays of bread and slumbered in his | P |
Ovens and his pans | P |
- | |
There came another plague of loathsome vermin | Y |
They were gray and creeping things that made | Z |
Their very clothes alive with dark and sombre | Q |
Spots things of loathsome in the land they did | O |
Suspend the service of the temple for no priest | A2 |
Dared to lift his hand to any god with one | B2 |
Of those upon him And then the sky grew | Q |
Dark as if a cloud were passing o'er its | P |
Changeless blue a buzzing sound broke o'er | Q |
The city and the land was swarmed with flies | P |
The Murrain laid their cattle low the hail | C2 |
Cut off the first fruits of the Nile the locusts | P |
With their hungry jaws destroyed the later crops | P |
And left the ground as brown and bare as if a fire | Q |
Had scorched it through | Q |
Then angry blains | P |
And fiery boils did blur the flesh of man | D2 |
And beast and then for three long days nor saffron | B2 |
Tint nor crimson flush nor soft and silvery light | R |
Divided day from morn nor told the passage | E2 |
Of the hours men rose not from their seats but sat | F2 |
In silent awe That lengthened night lay like a burden | B2 |
On the air a darkness one might almost gather | Q |
In his hand it was so gross and thick Then came | N |
The last dread plague the death of the first born | G2 |
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
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