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Brown was weeping likewise cursing and with amplitude of reason	A
For a letter had been handed him that very afternoon	B
Which proved he had been cruelly begotten out of season	A
That in fact he had been born a hundred centuries too soon	B
	-
From the day a friendly hint had told of coal on his selection	A
In the house the street the office Brown had revelled in a dream	C
Wherein himself and family and all the Brown connection	A
Figured floating in a golden barge adown a silver stream	C
	-
Now he wept and little wonder all his gorgeous hopes had faded	D
With the letter of the expert lying crumpled at his feet	E
Which reported with a wealth of scientific terms paraded	F
That the coal was hardly lignite though a little more than peat	E
	-
But some day so ran the missive it is bound to prove a treasure	G
Here a moment's re awakened hope had cheered the reader's soul	H
What with gas elimination and accumulated pressure	G
In ten thousand years or so it will be marketable coal	H
	-
Such the wherefore of the change from exultation to lamenting	I
And he lifted up his voice and cursed the author of his birth	J
Through whose rash precipitation unconsulted unconsenting	I
He had thus been dumped ten thousand years too soon upon the earth	J
	-
Not alone his sire and mother he denounced and execrated	E
On their parents and fore parents his anathemas he hurled	E
As one and all in series or in concert implicated	E
In his premature appearance on this carboniferous world	E
	-
For a change he cursed himself as the untimely culmination	A
Of the whole precocious family that bore the name of Brown	K
Till exhausted of ferocity the rage of imprecation	K
Into unavailing optatives broke impotently down	K
	-
Oh that things he raved had always been as in the early ages	L
Before the human race had lost the art of going slow	M
When the life of man proceeded at such very easy stages	L
That the proper age for wedlock was a hundred years or so	M
Would that each of my forefathers like Methusalem had waited	E
Who till nigh upon two hundred shirked the matrimonial r le	N
Then I had not been ten thousand years unduly antedated	E
But would doubtless in the future be co eval with my coal	H
	-
Now not for me shall this potential wealth be resurrected	E
This bottled sunshine immature shall mellow not for me	O
	-
Now another hand shall reap where I have where I have selected	E
And another lap receive the fruit that ripens on my tree	O
	-
Oh that I had been consulted ere the world was set in movement	E
When Providence was mapping out the future course of time	P
I had certainly suggested as a manifest improvement	E
That a coal seam and its owner should together reach their prime	P
	-
I shall be a bless d fossil when the land shall yield its treasure	G
I who registered the area and paid the money down	K
Paid the money little recking of another's gain and pleasure	G
Oh that I could sleep ten thousand years and wake again John Brown	K
	-
PART II	Q
And the gods whom he had railed at in his petulant misprision	K
Heard the prayer and sent such answer as appeared to meet the case	R
Heavy slumber fell upon him and 'twas given him in a vision	K
At the date himself had named to re awake to time and space	R
	-
On his treasure ground he stood for though his data were deficient	E
The old land marks being down and every feature new and strange	S
Yet as dreamers are at moments unaccountably omniscient	E
He was 'ware of his selection in despite of time and change	S
	-
And behold a crowd of workers working leisurely and coolly	O
Who with marvellous machinery were scooping up his coal	H
Which an aeronautic vehicle received and freighted fully	O
Soared away with at the touch of some invisible control	H
	-
Then within the soul of Brown did grievous sense of wrong awaken	K
And on one who made to pass him he imposed a sudden hand	E
Tell me tell me he demanded where my coal is being taken	K
At whose order has this trespass been committed on my land	E
	-
To whom in turn the other when a moment he had pondered	E
As if dubious how to grapple with an ignorance so great	E
From what planet in formation have you innocently wandered	E
My coal My land Poor waif you've come ten thousand years too late	E
	-
In this world where every man an altruistic democrat is	T
We avoid as much as possible the use of my's and thy's	T
Up in Saturn or in Neptune or where'er your habitat is	T
I presume you still are wallowing in the stage of merchandise	T
	-
You should have timed your visit for that earlier dispensation	K
When the individual flourished reaping where he did not sow	T
When he was counted wisest in his day and generation	K
Who made the largest profit with the smallest quid pro quo	M
	-
Now a man reaps what he sows and when his measure overfloweth	J
He who lacks may freely take as each for each and all doth live	U
Here are neither rich nor poor no man exacteth no man oweth	J
And the zest of labour groweth with the vital need to give	V
	-
And as touching this same mineral whose multifarious uses	T
By our prodigal progenitors were only half divined	E
Wheresoever to man's comfort or his pleasure it conduces	T
There his want his only title there the owner you will find	E
	-
	-
Brown awoke another man the situation now surveying	I
In the light of such new knowledge as prophetic vision brings	T
'Twas a chastened Brown who mopped his forehead tremulously saying	I
By the Lord I must anticipate that frightful state of things	T
	-
So he went and squared the expert who indited a voluminous	T
Report upon the merits of the hypothetic coal	H
While relays of goodly samples most seductively bituminous	T
Judiciously distributed beguiled the public soul	H
	-
Then a Company was floated and the rest needs no relating	I
Brown of course sold out in time nor have his riches taken wings	T
Brown is happy and respected and he doesn't mind narrating	I
How he managed to anticipate that frightful state of things	T

James Brunton Stephens

Born Before His Time Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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