Three Dead Friends Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDEFDEF GHGIJKLJKL MNMOPQRPQR STSTUPMUPM GJGJVWXWWX YZYZWWA2WWA2 WB2WB2WC2D2WC2D2 E2F2E2E2IWWIWWAlways suddenly they are gone | A |
The friends we trusted and held secure | B |
Suddenly we are gazing on | C |
Not a smiling face but the marble pure | B |
Dead mask of a face that nevermore | D |
To a smile of ours will make reply | E |
The lips close locked as the eyelids are | F |
Gone swift as the flash of the molten ore | D |
A meteor pours through a midnight sky | E |
Leaving it blind of a single star | F |
- | |
Tell us O Death Remorseless Might | G |
What is this old unescapable ire | H |
You wreak on us from the birth of light | G |
Till the world be charred to a core of fire | I |
We do no evil thing to you | J |
We seek to evade you that is all | K |
That is your will you will not be known | L |
Of men What then would you have us do | J |
Cringe and wait till your vengeance fall | K |
And your graves be fed and the trumpet blown | L |
- | |
You desire no friends but we O we | M |
Need them so as we falter here | N |
Fumbling through each new vacancy | M |
As each is stricken that we hold dear | O |
One you struck but a year ago | P |
And one not a month ago and one | Q |
God's vast pity and one lies now | R |
Where the widow wails in her nameless woe | P |
And the soldiers pace with the sword and gun | Q |
Where the comrade sleeps with the laureled brow | R |
- | |
And what did the first that wayward soul | S |
Clothed of sorrow yet nude of sin | T |
And with all hearts bowed in the strange control | S |
Of the heavenly voice of his violin | T |
Why it was music the way he stood | U |
So grand was the poise of the head and so | P |
Full was the figure of majesty | M |
One heard with the eyes as a deaf man would | U |
And with all sense brimmed to the overflow | P |
With tears of anguish and ecstasy | M |
- | |
And what did the girl with the great warm light | G |
Of genius sunning her eyes of blue | J |
With her heart so pure and her soul so white | G |
What O Death did she do to you | J |
Through field and wood as a child she strayed | V |
As Nature the dear sweet mother led | W |
While from her canvas mirrored back | X |
Glimmered the stream through the everglade | W |
Where the grapevine trailed from the trees to wed | W |
Its likeness of emerald blue and black | X |
- | |
And what did he who the last of these | Y |
Faced you with never a fear O Death | Z |
Did you hate him that he loved the breeze | Y |
And the morning dews and the rose's breath | Z |
Did you hate him that he answered not | W |
Your hate again but turned instead | W |
His only hate on his country's wrongs | A2 |
Well you possess him dead but what | W |
Of the good he wrought With laureled head | W |
He bides with us in his deeds and songs | A2 |
- | |
Laureled first that he bravely fought | W |
And forged a way to our flag's release | B2 |
Laureled next for the harp he taught | W |
To wake glad songs in the days of peace | B2 |
Songs of the woodland haunts he held | W |
As close in his love as they held their bloom | C2 |
In their inmost bosoms of leaf and vine | D2 |
Songs that echoed and pulsed and welled | W |
Through the town's pent streets and the sick child's room | C2 |
Pure as a shower in soft sunshine | D2 |
- | |
Claim them Death yet their fame endures | E2 |
What friend next will you rend from us | F2 |
In that cold pitiless way of yours | E2 |
And leave us a grief more dolorous | E2 |
Speak to us tell us O Dreadful Power | I |
Are we to have not a lone friend left | W |
Since frozen sodden or green the sod | W |
In every second of every hour | I |
Some one Death you have left thus bereft | W |
Half inaudibly shrieks to God | W |
James Whitcomb Riley
(1)
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