Gettysburg: A Battle Ode Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDDEEFFEGGGG A HIGHAGAJGJGIGKGK A LGLGLGLGEMEMNMNMGOGO LOLONGNGGGGG PPEGEEGEQEQQELGRLRLG STTUEUE GNNGU U NLNLNLNVNVNV N LWLWLNLNLGNLNLNGNG N LLLGGGGGGNNGGGNNGGNG GNGLPLGGGLLPLGLXXGGE VEV N NLLNGVGVLLYYNNVVLGGG NGVNGGGLGGV L VVGGVZGZGGGVVNVNVVGG GGVGV L VEVEVEGGGGGGLGLGLGNA 2NA2NA2LELEA2GGB2C2 L D2QGGGVQD2VE2EVGE2EG VGGVGGLVVVLVLL L VGGLLLGGVGGVVVVVVEF2 EI | A |
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Victors living with laureled brow | B |
And you that sleep beneath the sward | C |
Your song was poured from cannon throats | D |
It rang in deep tongued bugle notes | D |
Your triumph came you won your crown | E |
The grandeur of a world's renown | E |
But in our later lays | F |
Full freighted with your praise | F |
Fair memory harbors those whose lives laid down | E |
In gallant faith and generous heat | G |
Gained only sharp defeat | G |
All are at peace who once so fiercely warred | G |
Brother and brother now we chant a common chord | G |
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II | A |
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For if we say God wills | H |
Shall we then idly deny Him | I |
Care of each host in the fight | G |
His thunder was here in the hills | H |
When the guns were loud in July | A |
And the flash of the musketry's light | G |
Was sped by a ray from God's eye | A |
In its good and its evil the scheme | J |
Was framed with omnipotent hand | G |
Though the battle of men was a dream | J |
That they could but half understand | G |
Can the purpose of God pass by him | I |
Nay it was sure and was wrought | G |
Under inscrutable powers | K |
Bravely the two armies fought | G |
And left the land that was greater than they still theirs and ours | K |
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III | A |
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Lucid pure and calm and blameless | L |
Dawned on Gettysburg the day | G |
That should make the spot once fameless | L |
Known to nations far away | G |
Birds were caroling and farmers | L |
Gladdened o'er their garnered hay | G |
When the clank of gathering armors | L |
Broke the morning's peaceful sway | G |
And the living lines of foemen | E |
Drawn o'er pasture brook and hill | M |
Formed in figures weird of omen | E |
That should work with mystic will | M |
Measures of a direful magic | N |
Shattering maiming and should fill | M |
Glades and gorges with a tragic | N |
Madness of desire to kill | M |
Skirmishers flung lightly forward | G |
Moved like scythemen skilled to sweep | O |
Westward o'er the field and nor'ward | G |
Death's first harvest there to reap | O |
You would say the soft white smoke puffs | L |
Were but languid clouds asleep | O |
Here on meadows there on oak bluffs | L |
Fallen foam of Heaven's blue deep | O |
Yet that blossom white outbreaking | N |
Smoke wove soon a martyr's shroud | G |
Reynolds fell with soul unquaking | N |
Ardent eyed and open browed | G |
Noble men in humbler raiment | G |
Fell where shot their graves had plowed | G |
Dying not for paltry payment | G |
Proud of home of honor proud | G |
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IV | - |
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Mute Seminary there | P |
Filled once with resonant hymn and prayer | P |
How your meek walls and windows shuddered then | E |
Though Doubleday stemmed the flood | G |
McPherson's Wood and Willoughby's Run | E |
Saw ere the set of sun | E |
The light of the gospel of blood | G |
And on the morrow again | E |
Loud the unholy psalm of battle | Q |
Burst from the tortured Devil's Den | E |
In cries of men and musketry rattle | Q |
Mixed with the helpless bellow of cattle | Q |
Torn by artillery down in the glen | E |
While hurtling through the branches | L |
Of the orchard by the road | G |
Where Sickles and Birney were walled with steel | R |
Shot fiery avalanches | L |
That shivered hope and made the sturdiest reel | R |
Yet peach bloom bright as April saw | L |
Blushed there anew in blood that flowed | G |
O'er faces white with death dealt awe | S |
And ruddy flowers of warfare grew | T |
Though withering winds as of the desert blew | T |
Far at the right while Ewell and Early | U |
Plunging at Slocum and Wadsworth and Greene | E |
Thundered in onslaught consummate and surly | U |
Till trembling nightfall crept between | E |
And whispered of rest from the heat of the whelming strife | - |
But unto those forsaken of life | - |
What has the night to say | G |
Silent beneath the moony sky | N |
Crushed in a costly dew they lie | N |
Deaf to plaint or paean they | G |
Freed from Earth's dull tyranny | U |
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V | U |
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Wordless the night wind funereal plumes of the tree tops swaying | N |
Writhing and nodding anon at the beck of the unseen breeze | L |
Yet its voice ever a murmur resumes as of multitudes praying | N |
Liturgies lost in a moan like the mourning of far away seas | L |
May then those spirits set free a celestial council obeying | N |
Move in this rustling whisper here thro' the dark shaken trees | L |
Souls that are voices alone to us now yet linger returning | N |
Thrilled with a sweet reconcilement and fervid with speechless desire | V |
Sundered in warfare immortal they meet now with wonder and yearning | N |
Dwelling together united a rapt invisible choir | V |
Hearken They wail for the living whose passion of battle yet burning | N |
Sears and enfolds them in coils and consumes like a serpent of fire | V |
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VI | N |
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Men of New Hampshire Pennsylvanians | L |
Maine men firm as the rock's rough ledge | W |
Swift Mississippians lithe Carolinians | L |
Bursting over the battle's edge | W |
Bold Indiana men gallant Virginians | L |
Jersey and Georgia legions clashing | N |
Pick of Connecticut quick Vermonters | L |
Louisianians madly dashing | N |
And swooping still to fresh encounters | L |
New York myriads whirlwind led | G |
All your furious forces meeting | N |
Torn entangled and shifting place | L |
Blend like wings of eagles beating | N |
Airy abysses in angry embrace | L |
Here in the midmost struggle combining | N |
Flags immingled and weapons crossed | G |
Still in union your States troop shining | N |
Never a star from the lustre is lost | G |
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VII | N |
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Once more the sun deploys his rays | L |
Third in the trilogy of battle days | L |
The awful Friday comes | L |
A day of dread | G |
That should have moved with slow averted head | G |
And muffled feet | G |
Knowing what streams of pure blood shed | G |
What broken hearts and wounded lives must meet | G |
Its pitiless tread | G |
At dawn like monster mastiffs baying | N |
Federal cannon with a din affraying | N |
Roused the old Stonewall brigade | G |
That eagerly and undismayed | G |
Charged amain to be repelled | G |
After four hours' bitter fighting | N |
Forth and back with bayonets biting | N |
Where in after years the wood | G |
Flayed and bullet riddled stood | G |
A presence ghostly grim and stark | N |
With trees all withered wasted gray | G |
The place of combat night and day | G |
Like marshaled skeletons to mark | N |
Anon a lull the troops are spelled | G |
No sound of guns or drums | L |
Disturbs the air | P |
Only the insect chorus faintly hums | L |
Chirping around the patient sleepless dead | G |
Scattered or fallen in heaps all wildly spread | G |
Forgotten fragments left in hurried flight | G |
Forms that a few hours since were human creatures | L |
Now blasted of their features | L |
Or stamped with blank despair | P |
Or with dumb faces smiling as for gladness | L |
Though stricken by utter blight | G |
Of motionless inert and hopeless sadness | L |
Fear you the naked horrors of a war | X |
Then cherish peace and take up arms no more | X |
For if you fight you must | G |
Behold your brothers' dust | G |
Unpityingly ground down | E |
And mixed with blood and powder | V |
To write the annals of renown | E |
That make a nation prouder | V |
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VIII | N |
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All is quiet till one o'clock | N |
Then the hundred and fifty guns | L |
Metal loaded with metal in tons | L |
Massed by Lee send out their shock | N |
And with a movement magnificent | G |
Pickett the golden haired leader | V |
Thousands and thousands flings onward as if he sent | G |
Merely a meek interceder | V |
Steadily sure his division advances | L |
Gay as the light on its weapons that dances | L |
Agonized screams of the shell | Y |
The doom that it carries foretell | Y |
Rifle balls whistle like sea birds singing | N |
Limbs are severed and souls set winging | N |
Yet Pickett's warriors never waver | V |
Show me in all the world anything braver | V |
Than the bold sweep of his fearless battalions | L |
Three half miles over ground unsheltered | G |
Up to the cannon where regiments weltered | G |
Prone in the batteries' blast that raked | G |
Swaths of men and flame tongued drank | N |
Their blood with eager thirst unslaked | G |
Armistead Kemper and Pettigrew | V |
Rush on the Union men rank against rank | N |
Planting their battle flags high on the crest | G |
Pause not the soldiers nor dream they of rest | G |
Till they fall with their enemy's guns at the breast | G |
And the shriek in their ears of the wounded artillery stallions | L |
So Pickett charged a man indued | G |
With knightly power to lead a multitude | G |
And bring to fame the scarred surviving few | V |
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IX | L |
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In vain the mighty endeavor | V |
In vain the immortal valor | V |
In vain the insurgent life outpoured | G |
Faltered the column spent with shot and sword | G |
Its bright hope blanched with sudden pallor | V |
While Hancock's trefoil bloomed in triple fame | Z |
He chose the field he saved the second day | G |
And honoring here his glorious name | Z |
Again his phalanx held victorious sway | G |
Meade's line stood firm and volley on volley roared | G |
Triumphant Union soon to be restored | G |
Strong to defy all foes and fears forever | V |
The Ridge was wreathed with angry fire | V |
As flames rise round a martyr's stake | N |
For many a hero on that pyre | V |
Was offered for our dear land's sake | N |
What time in heaven the gray clouds flew | V |
To mingle with the deathless blue | V |
While here below the blue and gray | G |
Melted minglingly away | G |
Mirroring heaven to make another day | G |
And we who are Americans we pray | G |
The splendor of strength that Gettysburg knew | V |
May light the long generations with glorious ray | G |
And keep us undyingly true | V |
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X | L |
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Dear are the dead we weep for | V |
Dear are the strong hearts broken | E |
Proudly their memory we keep for | V |
Our help and hope a token | E |
Of sacred thought too deep for | V |
Words that leave it unspoken | E |
All that we know of fairest | G |
All that we have of meetest | G |
Here we lay down for the rarest | G |
Doers whose souls rose fleetest | G |
And in their homes of air rest | G |
Ranked with the truest and sweetest | G |
Days with fiery hearted bold advances | L |
Nights in dim and shadowy swift retreat | G |
Rains that rush with bright embattled lances | L |
Thunder booming round your stirless feet | G |
Winds that set the orchard with sweet fancies | L |
All abloom or ripple the ripening wheat | G |
Moonlight starlight on your mute graves falling | N |
Dew distilled as tears unbidden flow | A2 |
Dust of drought in drifts and layers crawling | N |
Lulling dreams of softly whispering snow | A2 |
Happy birds from leafy coverts calling | N |
These go on yet none of these you know | A2 |
Hearing not our human voices | L |
Speaking to you all in vain | E |
Nor the psalm of a land that rejoices | L |
Ringing from churches and cities and foundries a mighty refrain | E |
But we and the sun and the birds and the breezes that blow | A2 |
When tempests are striving and lightnings of heaven are spent | G |
With one consent | G |
Make unto them | B2 |
Who died for us eternal requiem | C2 |
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XI | L |
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Lovely to look on O South | D2 |
No longer stately scornful | Q |
But beautiful still in pride | G |
Our hearts go out to you as toward a bride | G |
Garmented soft in white | G |
Haughty and yet how love imbuing and tender | V |
You stand before us with your gently mournful | Q |
Memory haunted eyes and flower like mouth | D2 |
Where clinging thoughts as bees a cluster | V |
Murmur through the leafy gloom | E2 |
Musical in monotone | E |
Whisper sadly Yet a lustre | V |
As of glowing gold gray light | G |
Shines upon the orient bloom | E2 |
Sweet with orange blossoms thrown | E |
Round the jasmine starred deep night | G |
Crowning with dark hair your brow | V |
Ruthless once we came to slay | G |
And you met us then with hate | G |
Rough was the wooing of war we won you | V |
Won you at last though late | G |
Dear South to day | G |
As our country's altar made us | L |
One forever so we vow | V |
Unto yours our love to render | V |
Strength with strength we here endow | V |
And we make your honor ours | L |
Happiness and hope shall sun you | V |
All the wiles that half betrayed us | L |
Vanish from us like spent showers | L |
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XII | L |
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Two hostile bullets in mid air | V |
Together shocked | G |
And swift were locked | G |
Forever in a firm embrace | L |
Then let us men have so much grace | L |
To take the bullets' place | L |
And learn that we are held | G |
By laws that weld | G |
Our hearts together | V |
As once we battled hand to hand | G |
So hand in hand to day we stand | G |
Sworn to each other | V |
Brother and brother | V |
In storm and mist or calm translucent weather | V |
And Gettysburg's guns with their death giving roar | V |
Echoed from ocean to ocean shall pour | V |
Quickening life to the nation's core | V |
Filling our minds again | E |
With the spirit of those who wrought in the | F2 |
Field of the Flower of Men | E |
George Parsons Lathrop
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