A Letter Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDEFGHBHBIBIBJBKB LBMNOLPLQRQGSTSTPBPB UVUBWXWGQNQNQYGGZBZB A2BA2BB2C2B2B2QRQRQN QBB2B2B2B2NB2D2B2E2B E2BYB2YB2QNQNF2B2F2B 2G2XG2XB2BB2BNRNRQRQ RKQKQH2HRNI2BI2BJ2B2 J2B2K2RK2G'TIS over Moses All is lost | A |
I hear the bells a ringing | B |
Of Pharaoh and his Red Sea host | C |
I hear the Free Wills singing | B |
We're routed Moses horse and foot | D |
If there be truth in figures | E |
With Federal Whigs in hot pursuit | F |
And Hale and all the 'niggers ' | G |
Alack alas this month or more | H |
We've felt a sad foreboding | B |
Our very dreams the burden bore | H |
Of central cliques exploding | B |
Before our eyes a furnace shone | I |
Where heads of dough were roasting | B |
And one we took to be your own | I |
The traitor Hale was toasting | B |
Our Belknap brother heard with awe | J |
The Congo minstrels playing | B |
At Pittsfield Reuben Leavitt saw | K |
The ghost of Storrs a praying | B |
And Carroll's woods were sad to see | L |
With black winged crows a darting | B |
And Black Snout looked on Ossipee | M |
New glossed with Day and Martin | N |
We thought the 'Old Man of the Notch' | O |
His face seemed changing wholly | L |
His lips seemed thick his nose seemed flat | P |
His misty hair looked woolly | L |
And Co s teamsters shrieking fled | Q |
From the metamorphosed figure | R |
'Look there ' they said 'the Old Stone Head | Q |
Himself is turning nigger ' | G |
The schoolhouse out of Canaan hauled | S |
Seemed turning on its track again | T |
And like a great swamp turtle crawled | S |
To Canaan village back again | T |
Shook off the mud and settled flat | P |
Upon its underpinning | B |
A nigger on its ridge pole sat | P |
From ear to ear a grinning | B |
Gray H d heard o' nights the sound | U |
Of rail cars onward faring | V |
Right over Democratic ground | U |
The iron horse came tearing | B |
A flag waved o'er that spectral train | W |
As high as Pittsfield steeple | X |
Its emblem was a broken chain | W |
Its motto 'To the people ' | G |
I dreamed that Charley took his bed | Q |
With Hale for his physician | N |
His daily dose an old 'unread | Q |
And unreferred' petition | N |
There Hayes and Tuck as nurses sat | Q |
As near as near could be man | Y |
They leeched him with the 'Democrat ' | G |
They blistered with the 'Freeman ' | G |
Ah grisly portents What avail | Z |
Your terrors of forewarning | B |
We wake to find the nightmare Hale | Z |
Astride our breasts at morning | B |
From Portsmouth lights to Indian stream | A2 |
Our foes their throats are trying | B |
The very factory spindles seem | A2 |
To mock us while they're flying | B |
The hills have bonfires in our streets | B2 |
Flags flout us in our faces | C2 |
The newsboys peddling off their sheets | B2 |
Are hoarse with our disgraces | B2 |
In vain we turn for gibing wit | Q |
And shoutings follow after | R |
As if old Kearsarge had split | Q |
His granite sides with laughter | R |
What boots it that we pelted out | Q |
The anti slavery women | N |
And bravely strewed their hall about | Q |
With tattered lace and trimming | B |
Was it for such a sad reverse | B2 |
Our mobs became peacemakers | B2 |
And kept their tar and wooden horse | B2 |
For Englishmen and Quakers | B2 |
For this did shifty Atherton | N |
Make gag rules for the Great House | B2 |
Wiped we for this our feet upon | D2 |
Petitions in our State House | B2 |
Plied we for this our axe of doom | E2 |
No stubborn traitor sparing | B |
Who scoffed at our opinion loom | E2 |
And took to homespun wearing | B |
Ah Moses hard it is to scan | Y |
These crooked providences | B2 |
Deducing from the wisest plan | Y |
The saddest consequences | B2 |
Strange that in trampling as was meet | Q |
The nigger men's petition | N |
We sprung a mine beneath our feet | Q |
Which opened up perdition | N |
How goodly Moses was the game | F2 |
In which we've long been actors | B2 |
Supplying freedom with the name | F2 |
And slavery with the practice | B2 |
Our smooth words fed the people's mouth | G2 |
Their ears our party rattle | X |
We kept them headed to the South | G2 |
As drovers do their cattle | X |
But now our game of politics | B2 |
The world at large is learning | B |
And men grown gray in all our tricks | B2 |
State's evidence are turning | B |
Votes and preambles subtly spun | N |
They cram with meanings louder | R |
And load the Democratic gun | N |
With abolition powder | R |
The ides of June Woe worth the day | Q |
When turning all things over | R |
The traitor Hale shall make his hay | Q |
From Democratic clover | R |
Who then shall take him in the law | K |
Who punish crime so flagrant | Q |
Whose hand shall serve whose pen shall draw | K |
A writ against that 'vagrant' | Q |
Alas no hope is left us here | H2 |
And one can only pine for | H |
The envied place of overseer | R |
Of slaves in Carolina | N |
Pray Moses give Calhoun the wink | I2 |
And see what pay he's giving | B |
We're practised long enough we think | I2 |
To know the art of driving | B |
And for the faithful rank and file | J2 |
Who know their proper stations | B2 |
Perhaps it may be worth their while | J2 |
To try the rice plantations | B2 |
Let Hale exult let Wilson scoff | K2 |
To see us southward scamper | R |
The slaves we know are 'better off | K2 |
Than laborers in New Hampshire ' | G |
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1)
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