Fragment Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABAB CDCDCD EFEFEF GHGHGH IJIJIJ KLKMKL| The 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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