Caroline Chisholm Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDD EEBB FGHH IICC JJKK BBLLTHE PRIESTS and the Levites went forth to feast at the courts of the Kings | A |
They were vain of their greatness and worth and gladdened with glittering things | A |
They were fair in the favour of gold and they walked on with delicate feet | B |
Where famished and faint with the cold the women fell down in the street | B |
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The Priests and the Levites looked round all vexed and perplexed at the cries | C |
Of the maiden who crouched to the ground with the madness of want in her eyes | C |
And they muttered Few praises are earned when good hath been wrought in the dark | D |
While the backs of the people are turned we choose not to loiter nor hark | D |
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Moreover they said It is fair that our deeds in the daylight should shine | E |
If we feasted you who would declare that we gave you our honey and wine | E |
They gathered up garments of gold and they stepped with their delicate feet | B |
And the women who famished with cold were left with the snow in the street | B |
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The winds and the rains were abroad the homeless looked vainly for alms | F |
And they prayed in the dark to the Lord with agony clenched in their palms | G |
There is none of us left that is whole they cried through their faltering breath | H |
We are clothed with a sickness of soul and the shape of the shadow of death | H |
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He heard them and turned to the earth I am pained said the Lord at the woe | I |
Of my children so smitten with dearth but the night of their trouble shall go | I |
He called on His Chosen to come she listened and hastened to rise | C |
And He charged her to build them a home where the tears should be dried from their eyes | C |
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God s servant came forth from the South she told of a plentiful land | J |
And wisdom was set in her mouth and strength in the thews of her hand | J |
She lifted them out of their fear and they thought her their Moses and said | K |
We shall follow you sister from here to the country of sunshine and bread | K |
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She fed them and led them away through tempest and tropical heat | B |
Till they reached the far regions of day and sweet scented spaces of wheat | B |
She hath made them a home with her hand and they bloom like the summery vines | L |
For they eat of the fat of the land and drink of its glittering wines | L |
Henry Kendall
(1)
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