Fragment Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABAB CDCDCD EFEFEF GHGHGH IJIJIJ KLKMKLThe hand of Fate cannot be stayed | A |
The course of Fate cannot be steered | B |
By all the gods that man has made | A |
Nor all the devils he has feared | B |
Not by the prayers that might be prayed | A |
In all the temples he has reared | B |
- | |
See In your very midst there dwell | C |
Ten thousand thousand blacks a wedge | D |
Forged in the furnaces of hell | C |
And sharpened to a cruel edge | D |
By wrong and by injustice fell | C |
And driven by hatred as a sledge | D |
- | |
A wedge so slender at the start | E |
Just twenty slaves in shackles bound | F |
And yet which split the land apart | E |
With shrieks of war and battle sound | F |
Which pierced the nation's very heart | E |
And still lies cankering in the wound | F |
- | |
Not all the glory of your pride | G |
Preserved in story and in song | H |
Can from the judging future hide | G |
Through all the coming ages long | H |
That though you bravely fought and died | G |
You fought and died for what was wrong | H |
- | |
'Tis fixed for them that violate | I |
The eternal laws naught shall avail | J |
Till they their error expiate | I |
Nor shall their unborn children fail | J |
To pay the full required weight | I |
Into God's great unerring scale | J |
- | |
Think not repentance can redeem | K |
That sin his wages can withdraw | L |
No think as well to change the scheme | K |
Of worlds that move in reverent awe | M |
Forgiveness is an idle dream | K |
God is not love no God is law | L |
James Weldon Johnson
(1)
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