Grace Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAC DEAFGEHEAEIEJE K L MNANJNONPN QRSRPRAR JRARKRFRAR ATAT TUCUAUAUVW AAVA AAXAAAY ZAAA AAA2AB2A C2AD2AE2A F2AG2A H2I2AI2AI2XI2AI2 AJ2AK2L2K2 M2KN2KWHO is it beams the merriest | A |
At killing a man the laughing one | B |
You are the one I nominate | A |
God of the rivers of Babylon | C |
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A hundred times I've taken the mules | D |
And started early through the lane | E |
And come to the broken gate and looked | A |
And there my partner was again | F |
Sitting on top of a sorrel horse | G |
And picking the burrs from its matted mane | E |
Saying he thought he'd help me work | H |
That field of corn before the rain | E |
And I never spoke of the dollar a day | A |
It's no use causing hired men pain | E |
But slipped it into his hand at dark | I |
While he undid the coupling chain | E |
And whistled a gospel tune and knew | J |
He'd join in strong on the refrain | E |
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For I would pitch the treble high | K |
'Down at the cross where my Savior died ' | - |
And then he rolled along the bass | L |
'There did I bury my sin and pride ' | - |
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Sinful pride of a hired man | M |
Out of a hired woman born | N |
I'm thinking now how he was saved | A |
One day while plowing in the corn | N |
We plowed that steamy morning through | J |
I with the mule whose side was torn | N |
And keeping an eye on the mule I saw | O |
That the sun looked high and the man looked worn | N |
I would take him home to dinner with me | P |
And there my father's dinner horn | N |
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The sun blazed after dinner so | Q |
We sat a while by the maple trees | R |
Thinking of mother's pickles and pies | S |
And smoking a friendly pipe at ease | R |
I broached a point of piety | P |
For pious men are quick to tease | R |
Was it really true John dipped his crowd | A |
Down in the muddy Jordan's lees | R |
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And couldn't the Baptists backslide too | J |
If only they went on Methodist sprees | R |
And finally back to the field we went | A |
The corn was well above my knees | R |
The weeds were more than ankle high | K |
And dangerous customers were these | R |
We went to work in the heat again | F |
I hoped we'd get a bit of breeze | R |
And thought the hired man was used | A |
To God's most blazing cruelties | R |
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Sundays the hired man would pray | A |
To live in the sunshine of his face | T |
Now here was answer come complete | A |
Rather an overdose of grace | T |
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He fell in the furrow an honest place | T |
And an easy place for a man to fall | U |
His horse went marching blindly on | C |
In a beautiful dream of a great fat stall | U |
And God shone on in merry mood | A |
For it was a foolish kind of sprawl | U |
And I found a hulk of heaving meat | A |
That wouldn't answer me at all | U |
And a fresh breeze made the young corn dance | V |
To a bright green glorious carnival | W |
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And really is it not a gift | A |
To smile and be divinely gay | A |
To rise above a circumstance | V |
And smile distressing scenes away | A |
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But this was a thing that I had said | A |
I was so forward and untamed | A |
'I will not worship wickedness | X |
Though it be God's I am ashamed | A |
For all his mercies God be thanked | A |
But for his tyrannies be blamed | A |
He shall not have my love alone | Y |
With loathing too his name is named ' | - |
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I caught him up with all my strength | Z |
And with a silly stumbling tread | A |
I dragged him over the soft brown dirt | A |
And dumped him down beside the shed | A |
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I thought of the prayers the fool had prayed | A |
To his God and I was seeing red | A |
When all of a sudden he gave a heave | A2 |
And then with shuddering vomited | A |
And God who had just received full thanks | B2 |
For all his kindly daily bread | A |
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Now called it back again perhaps | C2 |
To see that his birds of the air were fed | A |
Not mother's dainty dinner now | D2 |
A rather horrible mess instead | A |
Yet all of it God required of him | E2 |
Before the fool was duly dead | A |
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Even of deaths there is a choice | F2 |
I've seen you give a good one God | A |
But he in his vomit laid him down | G2 |
Denied the decency of blood | A |
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If silence from the dead I swore | H2 |
There shall be cursing from the quick | I2 |
But I began to vomit too | A |
Cursing and vomit ever so thick | I2 |
The dead lay down and I did too | A |
Two ashy idiots take your pick | I2 |
A little lower than angels he made us | X |
Hear his excellent rhetoric | I2 |
A credit we were to him half of us dead | A |
The other half of us lying sick | I2 |
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The little clouds came Sunday dressed | A |
To do a holy reverence | J2 |
The young corn smelled its sweetest too | A |
And made him goodly frankincense | K2 |
The thrushes offered music up | L2 |
Choired in the wood beyond the fence | K2 |
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And while his praises filled the earth | M2 |
A solitary crow sailed by | K |
And while the whole creation sang | N2 |
He cawed not knowing how to sigh | K |
John Crowe Ransom
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