The Children's Crusade - [a Fragment.] Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCDDCEEC FGGFHHICJC KLAAKKA MNOONM PQPPRRQ EESHHSSSS TEETTE SSUUEVEV A PPFESSEF SSSSSSSWSBBWSE A SSWWS SWSSWSXXSSSSJSI YYEEZSSZE SSSWSSA2A2W SSB2SSSSB2WPPWPI | A |
- | |
What is this I read in history | B |
Full of marvel full of mystery | B |
Difficult to understand | C |
Is it fiction is it truth | D |
Children in the flower of youth | D |
Heart in heart and hand in hand | C |
Ignorant of what helps or harms | E |
Without armor without arms | E |
Journeying to the Holy Land | C |
- | |
Who shall answer or divine | F |
Never since the world was made | G |
Such a wonderful crusade | G |
Started forth for Palestine | F |
Never while the world shall last | H |
Will it reproduce the past | H |
Never will it see again | I |
Such an army such a band | C |
Over mountain over main | J |
Journeying to the Holy Land | C |
- | |
Like a shower of blossoms blown | K |
From the parent trees were they | L |
Like a flock of birds that fly | A |
Through the unfrequented sky | A |
Holding nothing as their own | K |
Passed they into lands unknown | K |
Passed to suffer and to die | A |
- | |
O the simple child like trust | M |
O the faith that could believe | N |
What the harnessed iron mailed | O |
Knights of Christendom had failed | O |
By their prowess to achieve | N |
They the children could and must | M |
- | |
Little thought the Hermit preaching | P |
Holy Wars to knight and baron | Q |
That the words dropped in his teaching | P |
His entreaty his beseeching | P |
Would by children's hands be gleaned | R |
And the staff on which he leaned | R |
Blossom like the rod of Aaron | Q |
- | |
As a summer wind upheaves | E |
The innumerable leaves | E |
In the bosom of a wood | S |
Not as separate leaves but massed | H |
All together by the blast | H |
So for evil or for good | S |
His resistless breath upheaved | S |
All at once the many leaved | S |
Many thoughted multitude | S |
- | |
In the tumult of the air | T |
Rock the boughs with all the nests | E |
Cradled on their tossing crests | E |
By the fervor of his prayer | T |
Troubled hearts were everywhere | T |
Rocked and tossed in human breasts | E |
- | |
For a century at least | S |
His prophetic voice had ceased | S |
But the air was heated still | U |
By his lurid words and will | U |
As from fires in far off woods | E |
In the autumn of the year | V |
An unwonted fever broods | E |
In the sultry atmosphere | V |
- | |
- | |
II | A |
- | |
In Cologne the bells were ringing | P |
In Cologne the nuns were singing | P |
Hymns and canticles divine | F |
Loud the monks sang in their stalls | E |
And the thronging streets were loud | S |
With the voices of the crowd | S |
Underneath the city walls | E |
Silent flowed the river Rhine | F |
- | |
From the gates that summer day | S |
Clad in robes of hodden gray | S |
With the red cross on the breast | S |
Azure eyed and golden haired | S |
Forth the young crusaders fared | S |
While above the band devoted | S |
Consecrated banners floated | S |
Fluttered many a flag and streamer | W |
And the cross o'er all the rest | S |
Singing lowly meekly slowly | B |
Give us give us back the holy | B |
Sepulchre of the Redeemer | W |
On the vast procession pressed | S |
Youths and maidens | E |
- | |
- | |
III | A |
- | |
Ah what master hand shall paint | S |
How they journeyed on their way | S |
How the days grew long and dreary | W |
How their little feet grew weary | W |
How their little hearts grew faint | S |
- | |
Ever swifter day by day | S |
Flowed the homeward river ever | W |
More and more its whitening current | S |
Broke and scattered into spray | S |
Till the calmly flowing river | W |
Changed into a mountain torrent | S |
Rushing from its glacier green | X |
Down through chasm and black ravine | X |
Like a phoenix in its nest | S |
Burned the red sun in the West | S |
Sinking in an ashen cloud | S |
In the East above the crest | S |
Of the sea like mountain chain | J |
Like a phoenix from its shroud | S |
Came the red sun back again | I |
- | |
Now around them white with snow | Y |
Closed the mountain peaks Below | Y |
Headlong from the precipice | E |
Down into the dark abyss | E |
Plunged the cataract white with foam | Z |
And it said or seemed to say | S |
Oh return while yet you may | S |
Foolish children to your home | Z |
There the Holy City is | E |
- | |
But the dauntless leader said | S |
Faint not though your bleeding feet | S |
O'er these slippery paths of sleet | S |
Move but painfully and slowly | W |
Other feet than yours have bled | S |
Other tears than yours been shed | S |
Courage lose not heart or hope | A2 |
On the mountains' southern slope | A2 |
Lies Jerusalem the Holy | W |
- | |
As a white rose in its pride | S |
By the wind in summer tide | S |
Tossed and loosened from the branch | B2 |
Showers its petals o'er the ground | S |
From the distant mountain's side | S |
Scattering all its snows around | S |
With mysterious muffled sound | S |
Loosened fell the avalanche | B2 |
Voices echoes far and near | W |
Roar of winds and waters blending | P |
Mists uprising clouds impending | P |
Filled them with a sense of fear | W |
Formless nameless never ending | P |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1)
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