The Pilgrim's Fathers Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCC DDEEFFGGGHHIIJKLLK JKGGCCMMNNOPQQRRRSTU UVVV UUMMWWUU XXYYZA2B2 UUC2HH D2D2UURRE2 F2IIF2G2UUHHG2UH2H2U I2 I2J2J2K2K2UUG2G2L2UU L2L2UU J2J2UUM2M2UUN2N2L2L2 G2G2UUO2O2P2P2 Q2L2UUL2Q2R2S2UUU FFUG2G2UM2M2T2T2U2U2 UU H2H2U C2UU UM2M2DDDUUUUUUT2T2 UUOONE righteous word for Law the common will | A |
One living truth of Faith God regnant still | A |
One primal test of Freedom all combined | B |
One sacred Revolution change of mind | B |
One trust unfailing for the night and need | C |
The tyrant flower shall cast the freedom seed | C |
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So held they firm the Fathers aye to be | D |
From Home to Holland Holland to the sea | D |
Pilgrims for manhood in their little ship | E |
Hope in each heart and prayer on every lip | E |
They could not live by king made codes and creeds | F |
They chose the path where every footstep bleeds | F |
Protesting not rebelling scorned and banned | G |
Through pains and prisons harried from the land | G |
Through double exile till at last they stand | G |
Apart from all unique unworldly true | H |
Selected grain to sow the earth anew | H |
A winnowed part a saving remnant they | I |
Dreamers who work adventurers who pray | I |
What vision led them Can we test their prayers | J |
Who knows they saw no empire in the West | K |
The later Puritans sought land and gold | L |
And all the treasures that the Spaniard told | L |
What line divides the Pilgrims from the rest | K |
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We know them by the exile that was theirs | J |
Their justice faith and fortitude attest | K |
And those long years in Holland when their band | G |
Sought humble living in a stranger's land | G |
They saw their England covered with a weed | C |
Of flaunting lordship both in court and creed | C |
With helpless hands they watched the error grow | M |
Pride on the top and impotence below | M |
Indulgent nobles privileged and strong | N |
A haughty crew to whom all rights belong | N |
The bishops arrogant the courts impure | O |
The rich conspirators against the poor | P |
The peasant scorned the artisan despised | Q |
The all supporting workers lowest prized | Q |
They marked those evils deepen year by year | R |
The pensions grow the freeholds disappear | R |
Till England meant but monarch prelate peer | R |
At last the Conquest Now they know the word | S |
The Saxon tenant and the Norman lord | T |
No longer Merrie England now it meant | U |
The payers and the takers of the rent | U |
And rent exacted not from lands alone | V |
All rights and hopes must centre in the throne | V |
Law tithes for prayer their souls were not their own | V |
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Then o'er the brim the bitter waters welled | U |
The mind protested and the soul rebelled | U |
And yet how deep the bowl how slight the flow | M |
A few brave exiles from their country go | M |
A few strong souls whose rich affections cling | W |
Though cursed by clerics hunted by the king | W |
Their last sad vision on the Grimsby strand | U |
Their wives and children kneeling on the sand | U |
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Then twelve slow years in Holland changing years | X |
Strange ways of life strange voices in their ears | X |
The growing children learning foreign speech | Y |
And growing too within the heart of each | Y |
A thought of further exile of a home | Z |
In some far land a home for life and death | A2 |
By their hands built in equity and faith | B2 |
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And then the preparation the heart beat | U |
Of wayfarers who may not rest their feet | U |
Their Pastor's blessing the farewells of some | C2 |
'Who stayed in Leyden Then the sea's wide blue | H |
'They sailed ' writ one ' and as they sailed they knew | H |
That they were Pilgrims ' | - |
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On the wintry main | D2 |
Grod flings their lives as farmers scatter grain | D2 |
His breath propels the winged seed afloat | U |
His tempests swerve to spare the fragile boat | U |
Before His prompting terrors disappear | R |
He points the way while patient seamen steer | R |
Till port is reached nor North nor South but HERE | E2 |
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Here where the shore was rugged as the waves | F2 |
'Where frozen nature dumb and leafless lay | I |
And no rich meadows bade the Pilgrims stay | I |
'Was spread the symbol of the life that saves | F2 |
To conquer first the outer things to make | G2 |
Their own advantage unallied unbound | U |
Their blood the mortar building from the ground | U |
Their cares the statutes making all anew | H |
To learn to trust the many not the few | H |
To bend the mind to discipline to break | G2 |
The bonds of old convention and forget | U |
The claims and barriers of class to face | H2 |
A desert land a strange and hostile race | H2 |
And conquer both to friendship by the debt | U |
That Nature pays to justice love and toil | I2 |
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Here on this rock and on this sterile soil | I2 |
Began the kingdom not of kings but men | J2 |
Began the making of the world again | J2 |
Here centuries sank and from the hither brink | K2 |
A new world reached and raised an old world link | K2 |
When English hands by wider vision taught | U |
Threw down the feudal bars the Normans brought | U |
And here revived in spite of sword and stake | G2 |
Their ancient freedom of the Wapentake | G2 |
Here struck the seed the Pilgrims' roofless town | L2 |
Where equal rights and equal bonds were set | U |
Where all the people equal franchised met | U |
Where doom was writ of privilege and crown | L2 |
Where human breath blew all the idols down | L2 |
Where crests were nought where vulture flags were furled | U |
And common men began to own the world | U |
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All praise to others of the vanguard then | J2 |
To Spain to France to Baltimore and Penn | J2 |
To Jesuit Quaker Puritan and Priest | U |
Their toil be crowned their honors be increased | U |
We slight no true devotion steal no fame | M2 |
From other shrines to gild the Pilgrims' name | M2 |
As time selects we judge their treasures heaped | U |
Their deep foundations laid their harvests reaped | U |
Their primal mode of liberty their rules | N2 |
Of civil right their churches courts and schools | N2 |
Their freedom's very secret here laid down | L2 |
The spring of government is the little town | L2 |
They knew that streams must follow to a spring | G2 |
And no stream flows from township to a king | G2 |
Give praise to others early come or late | U |
For love and labor on our ship of state | U |
But this must stand above all fame and zeal | O2 |
The Pilgrim Fathers laid the ribs and keel | O2 |
On their strong lines we base our social health | P2 |
The man the home the town the commonwealth | P2 |
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Unconscious builders Yea the conscious fail | Q2 |
Design is impotent if Nature frown | L2 |
No deathless pile has grown from intellect | U |
Immortal things have God for architect | U |
And men are but the granite He lays down | L2 |
Unconscious Yea They thought it might avail | Q2 |
To build a gloomy creed about their lives | R2 |
To shut out all dissent but naught survives | S2 |
Of their poor structure and we know to day | U |
Their mission was less pastoral than lay | U |
More Nation seed than Gospel seed were they | U |
- | |
The Faith was theirs the time had other needs | F |
The salt they bore must sweeten worldly deeds | F |
There was a meaning in the very wind | U |
That blew them here so few so poor so strong | G2 |
To grapple concrete work not abstract wrong | G2 |
Their saintly Robinson was left behind | U |
To teach by gentle memory to shame | M2 |
The bigot spirit and the word of flame | M2 |
To write dear mercy in the Pilgrims' law | T2 |
To lead to that wide faith his soul foresaw | T2 |
That no rejected race in darkness delves | U2 |
There are no Gentiles but they make themselves | U2 |
That men are one of blood and one of spirit | U |
That one is as the whole and all inherit | U |
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On all the story of a life or race | H2 |
The blessing of a good man leaves its trace | H2 |
Their Pastor's word at Leyden here sufficed | U |
'But follow me as I have followed Christ ' | - |
And 'I believe there is more truth to come ' | - |
O gentle soul what future age shall sum | C2 |
The sweet incentive of thy tender word | U |
Thy sigh to hear of conquest by the sword | U |
'How happy to convert and not to slay ' | - |
When valiant Standish killed the chief at bay | U |
To such as thee the Fathers owe their fame | M2 |
The Nation owes a temple to thy name | M2 |
Thy teaching made the Pilgrims kindly free | D |
All that the later Puritans should be | D |
Thy pious instinct marks their destiny | D |
Thy love won more than force or arts adroit | U |
It writ and kept the deed with Massasoit | U |
It earned the welcome Samoset expressed | U |
It lived again in Eliot's loving breast | U |
It filled the Compact which the Pilgrims signed | U |
Immortal scroll the first where men combined | U |
From one deep lake of common blood to draw | T2 |
All rulers rights and potencies of law | T2 |
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When waves of ages have their motive spent | U |
Thy sermon preaches in this Monument | U |
Where Virtue Cour | O |
John Boyle O'reilly
(1)
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