Aechdeacon Barbour Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBBCCAADEFFAAGGHHI IJJKKLLAAAAMMNNOOPPA AQQQRSTTUUAAVVAEWWWA AAEXXIYDDZZA2A2LLB2B 2OC2MMAAD2D2E2E2F2EK KG2G2H2H2G2G2AAPPI2I 2J2J2G2G2K2TQQWWG2G2 B2B2BBI2I2L2L2IIAAG2 G2G2G2L2L2AEQQG2G2AA G2G2AAAAAADDM2M2PPG2 G2G2G2N2O2P2P2AG2QQG 2G2I2I2AAAAP2P2THROUGH 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
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Aechdeacon Barbour poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Best Poems of John Greenleaf Whittier