Aechdeacon Barbour Poem Rhyme Scheme

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THROUGH the long hall the shuttered windows shed	A
A dubious light on every upturned head	A
On locks like those of Absalom the fair	B
On the bald apex ringed with scanty hair	B
On blank indifference and on curious stare	B
On the pale Showman reading from his stage	C
The hieroglyphics of that facial page	C
Half sad half scornful listening to the bruit	A
Of restless cane tap and impatient foot	A
And the shrill call across the general din	D
'Roll up your curtain Let the show begin '	E
At length a murmur like the winds that break	F
Into green waves the prairie's grassy lake	F
Deepened and swelled to music clear and loud	A
And as the west wind lifts a summer cloud	A
The curtain rose disclosing wide and far	G
A green land stretching to the evening star	G
Fair rivers skirted by primeval trees	H
And flowers hummed over by the desert bees	H
Marked by tall bluffs whose slopes of greenness show	I
Fantastic outcrops of the rock below	I
The slow result of patient Nature's pains	J
And plastic fingering of her sun and rains	J
Arch tower and gate grotesquely windowed hall	K
And long escarpment of half crumbled wall	K
Huger than those which from steep hills of vine	L
Stare through their loopholes on the travelled Rhine	L
Suggesting vaguely to the gazer's mind	A
A fancy idle as the prairie wind	A
Of the land's dwellers in an age unguessed	A
The unsung Jotuns of the mystic West	A
Beyond the prairie's sea like swells surpass	M
The Tartar's marvels of his Land of Grass	M
Vast as the sky against whose sunset shores	N
Wave after wave the billowy greenness pours	N
And onward still like islands in that main	O
Loom the rough peaks of many a mountain chain	O
Whence east and west a thousand waters run	P
From winter lingering under summer's sun	P
And still beyond long lines of foam and sand	A
Tell where Pacific rolls his waves a land	A
From many a wide lapped port and land locked bay	Q
Opening with thunderous pomp the world's highway	Q
To Indian isles of spice and marts of far Cathay	Q
'Such ' said the Showman as the curtain fell	R
'Is the new Canaan of our Israel	S
The land of promise to the swarming North	T
Which hive like sends its annual surplus forth	T
To the poor Southron on his worn out soil	U
Scathed by the curses of unnatural toil	U
To Europe's exiles seeking home and rest	A
And the lank nomads of the wandering West	A
Who asking neither in their love of change	V
And the free bison's amplitude of range	V
Rear the log hut for present shelter meant	A
Not future comfort like an Arab's tent '	E
Then spake a shrewd on looker 'Sir ' said he	W
'I like your picture but I fain would see	W
A sketch of what your promised land will be	W
When with electric nerve and fiery brained	A
With Nature's forces to its chariot chained	A
The future grasping by the past obeyed	A
The twentieth century rounds a new decade '	E
Then said the Showman sadly 'He who grieves	X
Over the scattering of the sibyl's leaves	X
Unwisely mourns Suffice it that we know	I
What needs must ripen from the seed we sow	Y
That present time is but the mould wherein	D
We cast the shapes of holiness and sin	D
A painful watcher of the passing hour	Z
Its lust of gold its strife for place and power	Z
Its lack of manhood honor reverence truth	A2
Wise thoughted age and generous hearted youth	A2
Nor yet unmindful of each better sign	L
The low far lights which on th' horizon shine	L
Like those which sometimes tremble on the rim	B2
Of clouded skies when day is closing dim	B2
Flashing athwart the purple spears of rain	O
The hope of sunshine on the hills again	C2
I need no prophet's word nor shapes that pass	M
Like clouding shadows o'er a magic glass	M
For now as ever passionless and cold	A
Doth the dread angel of the future hold	A
Evil and good before us with no voice	D2
Or warning look to guide us in our choice	D2
With spectral hands outreaching through the gloom	E2
The shadowy contrasts of the coming doom	E2
Transferred from these it now remains to give	F2
The sun and shade of Fate's alternative '	E
Then with a burst of music touching all	K
The keys of thrifty life the mill stream's fall	K
The engine's pant along its quivering rails	G2
The anvil's ring the measured beat of flails	G2
The sweep of scythes the reaper's whistled tune	H2
Answering the summons of the bells of noon	H2
The woodman's hail along the river shores	G2
The steamboat's signal and the dip of oars	G2
Slowly the curtain rose from off a land	A
Fair as God's garden Broad on either hand	A
The golden wheat fields glimmered in the sun	P
And the tall maize its yellow tassels spun	P
Smooth highways set with hedge rows living green	I2
With steepled towns through shaded vistas seen	I2
The school house murmuring with its hive like swarm	J2
The brook bank whitening in the grist mill's storm	J2
The painted farm house shining through the leaves	G2
Of fruited orchards bending at its eaves	G2
Where live again around the Western hearth	K2
The homely old time virtues of the North	T
Where the blithe housewife rises with the day	Q
And well paid labor counts his task a play	Q
And grateful tokens of a Bible free	W
And the free Gospel of Humanity	W
Of diverse sects and differing names the shrines	G2
One in their faith whate'er their outward signs	G2
Like varying strophes of the same sweet hymn	B2
From many a prairie's swell and river's brim	B2
A thousand church spires sancify the air	B
Of the calm Sabbath with their sign of prayer	B
Like sudden nightfall over bloom and green	I2
The curtain dropped and momently between	I2
The clank of fetter and the crack of thong	L2
Half sob half laughter music swept along	L2
A strange refrain whose idle words and low	I
Like drunken mourners kept the time of woe	I
As if the revellers at a masquerade	A
Heard in the distance funeral marches played	A
Such music dashing all his smiles with tears	G2
The thoughtful voyager on Ponchartrain hears	G2
Where through the noonday dusk of wooded shores	G2
The negro boatman singing to his oars	G2
With a wild pathos borrowed of his wrong	L2
Redeems the jargon of his senseless song	L2
'Look ' said the Showman sternly as he rolled	A
His curtain upward 'Fate's reverse behold '	E
A village straggling in loose disarray	Q
Of vulgar newness premature decay	Q
A tavern crazy with its whiskey brawls	G2
With 'Slaves at Auction ' garnishing its walls	G2
Without surrounded by a motley crowd	A
The shrewd eyed salesman garrulous and loud	A
A squire or colonel in his pride of place	G2
Known at free fights the caucus and the race	G2
Prompt to proclaim his honor without blot	A
And silence doubters with a ten pace shot	A
Mingling the negro driving bully's rant	A
With pious phrase and democratic cant	A
Yet never scrupling with a filthy jest	A
To sell the infant from its mother's breast	A
Break through all ties of wedlock home and kin	D
Yield shrinking girlhood up to graybeard sin	D
Sell all the virtues with his human stock	M2
The Christian graces on his auction block	M2
And coolly count on shrewdest bargains driven	P
In hearts regenerate and in souls forgiven	P
Look once again The moving canvas shows	G2
A slave plantation's slovenly repose	G2
Where in rude cabins rotting midst their weeds	G2
The human chattel eats and sleeps and breeds	G2
And held a brute in practice as in law	N2
Becomes in fact the thing he's taken for	O2
There early summoned to the hemp and corn	P2
The nursing mother leaves her child new born	P2
There haggard sickness weak and deathly faint	A
Crawls to his task and fears to make complains	G2
And sad eyed Rachels childless in decay	Q
Weep for their lost ones sold and torn away	Q
Of ampler size the master's dwelling stands	G2
In shabby keeping with his half tilled lands	G2
The gates unhinged the yard with weeds unclean	I2
The cracked veranda with a tipsy lean	I2
Without loose scattered like a wreck adrift	A
Signs of misrule and tokens of unthrift	A
Within profusion to discomfort joined	A
The listless body and the vacant mind	A
The fear the hate the theft and falsehood born	P2
In menial hearts of toil and stripes and scorn	P2

John Greenleaf Whittier

Aechdeacon Barbour Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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