A Nation's Test Poem Rhyme Scheme

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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
	-
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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
	-
	-
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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

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