Two Altars Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEADADBA FFFGBHHHGF HAFHGAFG FCGFDIDAFJ GFGHHCDDGH FFKIAFAGAA| And Cain talked with Abel his brother | A |
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| The sun was rising on earth sin tainted yet beautiful | B |
| Delicate gold colored cloudlets in all their primeval beauty | C |
| Ushered the bright orb of day to his task well appointed | D |
| Like a bevy of beautifal girls in the court of their monarch | E |
| Or a regiment of soldiers all bright in new rose colored armour | A |
| Two altars arose between earth and the cloud speckled firmament | D |
| Cain walked in a stern and defiant advance to his altar | A |
| A recklessness flashed from his eyes and passions unconquered | D |
| As he scornfully looked on the kneeling worshipping Abel | B |
| Ay scornfully thus he addressed his young innocent brother | A |
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| Look at my sacrifice Abel these glistening dew colored roses | F |
| Those delicate lillies and mosses these graceful arbutulas | F |
| Look at the golden brown tints of these fruits in their lusciousness | F |
| Look at the bright varied hues of these green leaves closely encircling | G |
| These rich scarlet blossoms like yonder clouds glorious and wonderful | B |
| Nothing on earth or in heaven could make fairer oblation | H |
| Abel what have you carved on your altar in that wild devotion | H |
| By which you in vain seek to soften the anger of heaven | H |
| A circle to show that your God is all near is filling | G |
| The seen and unseen with His incomprehensible presence | F |
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| Well so let it be then I'll not contradict the illusion | H |
| One thing appears certain that we have offended our Maker | A |
| Who visits unjustly on us the mistakes of our parents | F |
| As if we ever reached out our hands for fruit once forbidden | H |
| Shall we never be free from the thorns and the thistles upspringing | G |
| Why do you still try to follow the steps and voice of your Maker | A |
| And why still persist in slaying the white lambs of your meadows | F |
| Take of my beautiful flowers and despise all blood shedding | G |
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| My brother spoke Abel I love the dear innocent flowers | F |
| Are they not all nearly all that is left us of Eden's fair glory | C |
| All but the singing of birds the winds and the waters wild music | G |
| All but the whispers of love and blessings of heart broken parents | F |
| But you heard my brother as well as myself the commandment | D |
| Not to offer to heaven what we choose but what God declareth | I |
| Will shadow our Faith and sweet Hope in the promised atonement | D |
| And that terrible sin those spots in our souls my dear brother | A |
| Can never be cleansed by the lives of the beautiful flowers | F |
| Only by His shadowed forth in the death of an innocent victim | J |
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| Then angrily answered Cain back to his young brother's pleading | G |
| Abel I have no patience with such mock humiliations | F |
| I have no need of a Saviour I have no need of blood shedding | G |
| To wash out the stain of my own or my father's transgression | H |
| I for myself can make perfect and full restitution | H |
| Look at the smoke of your altar curling upward so clearly | C |
| Making white cloudlets on high in the blue of the firmament | D |
| While mine sweeps the ground that is cursed like the trail of the serpent | D |
| Why comes down the Maker of this blighted universe asking | G |
| Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance fallen | H |
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| Stand I not here in the image of God who created us | F |
| Have I not courage and freedom and strength above my inferiors | F |
| Did not our father give name to beast bird insect and reptile | K |
| Shall his children crouch down and kneel like the creature that crawleth | I |
| I will not obey this commandment but I'll wreath up my altar | A |
| With offerings of earth with gold of the orange and red of the roses | F |
| I'll not stain my hands with the blood of an innocent creature | A |
| So Cain turned away from his wondering brother perhaps then little dreaming | G |
| That on the next morrow he would become earth's first murderer | A |
| And scorning the death of a lamb take the life of a brother | A |
Harriet Annie Wilkins
(1)
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About Two Altars
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