A Nation's Test Poem Rhyme Scheme

Recent Interactions*

This poem was read 25 times,

This poem was added to the favorite list by 0 members,

This poem was voted by 0 members.

(* Interactions only in the last 7 days)

New Poems

Threatening And Reality
by Obed Yadzo
A Guidebook To My Future Friends
by Aditi Mukherjee
Ndihamba Ndisekhona" Chant Beat: Stomp-stomp-clap, Stomp-stomp-clap
by Asher Chipu
Ledige Praatjies
by Asher Chipu
Life Is Working
by Asher Chipu
The Knocking To The Door
by Asher Chipu
Ubizo: What You Are Called To Do
by Asher Chipu
Sum Obsession
by Asher Chipu
Locust
by Asher Chipu
Eden Passing
by Asher Chipu

Popular Poets

1. Emily Dickinson(2415 poems)
2. Madison Julius Cawein(1231 poems)
3. Ella Wheeler Wilcox(1136 poems)
4. William Wordsworth(1016 poems)
5. Robert Burns(986 poems)
6. Edgar Albert Guest(945 poems)
7. Thomas Moore(849 poems)
8. Robert Service(831 poems)

I	A
A NATION'S greatness lies in men not acres	B
One master mind is worth a million hands	C
No royal robes have marked the planet shakers	B
But Samson strength to burst the ages' bands	C
The might of empire gives no crown supernal	D
Athens is here but where is Macedon	E
A dozen lives make Greece and Rome eternal	D
And England's fame might safely rest on one	E
	-
Here test and text are drawn from Nature's preaching	F
Afric and Asia half the rounded earth	G
In teeming lives the solemn truth are teaching	F
That insect millions may have human birth	G
Sun kissed and fruitful every clod is breeding	F
A petty life too small to reach the eye	A
So must it be with no man thinking leading	F
The generations creep their course and die	A
	-
Hapless the lands and doomed amid the races	H
That give no answer to this royal test	I
Their toiling tribes will droop ignoble faces	H
Till earth in pity takes them back to rest	I
A vast monotony may not be evil	D
But God's light tells us it cannot be good	J
Valley and hill have beauty but the level	D
Must bear a shadeless and a stagnant brood	K
	-
	-
II	A
I bring the touchstone Motherland to thee	L
And test thee trembling fearing thou shouldst fail	D
If fruitless sonless thou wert proved to be	L
Ah what would love and memory avail	D
	-
Brave land God has blest thee	L
Thy strong heart I feel	D
As I touch thee and test thee	L
Dear land As the steel	D
To the magnet flies upward so rises thy breast	I
With a motherly pride to the touch of the test	I
	-
	-
III	A
See she smiles beneath the touchstone looking on her distant youth	M
Looking down her line of leaders and of workers for the truth	M
Ere the Teuton Norseman Briton left the primal woodland spring	F
When their rule was might and rapine and their law a painted king	F
When the sun of art and learning still was in the Orient	N
When the pride of Babylonia under Cyrus' hand was shent	N
When the sphinx's introverted eye turned fresh from Egypt's guilt	N
When the Persian bowed to Athens when the Parthenon was built	N
When the Macedonian climax closed the Commonwealths of Greece	O
When the wrath of Roman manhood burst on Tarquin for Lucrece	O
Then was Erin rich in knowledge thence from out her Ollamh's store	P
Kenned to day by students only grew her ancient Senchus More	P
Then were reared her mighty builders who made temples to the sun	E
There they stand the old Round Towers showing how their work was done	E
Thrice a thousand years upon them shaming all our later art	N
Warning fingers raised to tell us we must build with rev 'rent heart	N
Ah we call thee Mother Erin Mother thou in right of years	O
Mother in the large fruition mother in the joys and tears	O
All thy life has been a symbol we can only read a part	N
God will flood thee yet with sunshine for the woes that drench thy heart	N
All thy life has been symbolic of a human mother's life	Q
Youth's sweet hopes and dreams have vanished and the travail and the strife	Q
Are upon thee in the present but thy work until to day	N
Still has been for truth and manhood and it shall not pass away	N
Justice lives though judgment lingers angels' feet are heavy shod	N
But a planet's years are moments in th' eternal day of God	N
	-
	-
IV	Q
Out from the valley of death and tears	O
From the war and want of a thousand years	O
From the mark of sword and the rust of chain	E
From the smoke and blood of the penal laws	O
The Irishmen and the Irish cause	O
Come out in the front of the field again	E
	-
What says the stranger to such a vitality	N
What says the statesman to this nationality	N
Flung on the shore of a sea of defeat	N
Hardly the swimmers have sprung to their feet	N
When the nations are thrilled by a clarion word	N
And Burke the philosopher statesman is heard	N
When shall his equal be Down from the stellar height	N
Sees he the planet and all on its girth	G
India Columbia and Europe his eagle sight	N
Sweeps at a glance all the wrong upon earth	G
Races or sects were to him a profanity	N
Hindoo and Negro and Kelt were as one	E
Large as mankind was his splendid humanity	N
Large in its record the work he has done	E
	-
	-
V	N
What need to mention men of minor note	N
When there be minds that all the heights attain	E
What school boy knoweth not the hand that wrote	N
'Sweet Auburn loveliest village of the plain'	E
What man that speaketh English e'er can lift	N
His voice 'mid scholars who hath missed the lore	P
Of Berkeley Curran Sheridan and Swift	N
The art of Foley and the songs of Moore	R
Grattan and Flood and Emmet where is he	N
That hath not learned respect for such as	O
Who loveth humor and hath yet to see	N
Lover and Prout and Lever and Maclise	N
	-
	-
	-
VI	Q
Great men grow greater by the lapse of time	S
We know those least whom we have seen the latest	N
And they 'mongst those whose names have grown sublime	S
Who worked for Human Liberty are greatest	N
	-
And now for one who allied will to work	T
And thought to act and burning speech to thought	N
Who gained the prizes that were seen by Burke	T
Burke felt the wrong O'Council felt and fought	N
	-
Ever the same from boyhood up to death	U
His race was crushed his people were defamed	N
He found the spark and fanned it with his breath	U
And fed the fire till all the nation flamed	N
	-
He roused the farms he made the serf a yeoman	E
He drilled his millions and he faced the foe	Q
But not with lead or steel he struck the foeman	E
Reason the sword and human right the blow	Q
	-
He fought for home but no land limit bounded	N
O'Connell's faith nor curbed his sympathies	N
All wrong to liberty must be confounded	N
Till men were chainless as the winds and seas	N
	-
He fought for faith but with no narrow spirit	N
With ceaseless hand the bigot laws he smote	N
One chart he said all mankind should inherit	N
The right to worship and the right to vote	N
Always the same but yet a glinting prism	V
In wit law statecraft still a master hand	N
An 'uncrowned king ' whose people's love was chrism	V
His title Liberator of his Land	N
	-
'His heart's in Rome his spirit is in heaven'	E
So runs the old song that his people sing	F
A tall Round Tower they builded in Glasnevin	E
Fit Irish headstone for an Irish king	F
	-
	-
VII	Q
Oh Motherland there is no cause to doubt thee	N
Thy mark is left on every shore to day	N
Though grief and wrong may cling like robes about thee	N
Thy motherhood will keep thee queen alway	N
In faith and patience working and believing	F
Not power alone can make a noble state	N
Whate'er the land though all things else conceiving	F
Unless it breed great men it is not great	N
Go on dear land and midst the generations	N
Send out strong men to cry the word aloud	N
Thy niche is empty still amidst the nations	N
Go on in faith and God must raise the cloud	N

John Boyle O'reilly

A Nation's Test Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

About A Nation's Test

Write your comment about A Nation's Test poem by John Boyle O'reilly

Recent Interactions*

New Poems

Popular Poets