The Branded Hand Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDEFFGGHHIIJJKK LLMMNNOOPPQQRRKKSSMM LTUUVVWWOOII| WELCOME home again brave seaman with thy thoughtful brow and gray | A |
| And the old heroic spirit of our earlier better day | A |
| With that front of calm endurance on whose steady nerve in vain | B |
| Pressed the iron of the prison smote the fiery shafts of pain | B |
| Is the tyrant's brand upon thee Did the brutal cravens aim | C |
| To make God's truth thy falsehood His holiest work thy shame | C |
| When all blood quenched from the torture the iron was withdrawn | D |
| How laughed their evil angel the baffled fools to scorn | E |
| They change to wrong the duty which God hath written out | F |
| On the great heart of humanity too legible for doubt | F |
| They the loathsome moral lepers blotched from footsole up to crown | G |
| Give to shame what God hath given unto honor and renown | G |
| Why that brand is highest honor than its traces never yet | H |
| Upon old armorial hatchments was a prouder blazon set | H |
| And thy unborn generations as they tread our rocky strand | I |
| Shall tell with pride the story of their father's branded hand | I |
| As the Templar home was welcome bearing back from Syrian wars | J |
| The scars of Arab lances and of Paynim scimitars | J |
| The pallor of the prison and the shackle's crimson span | K |
| So we meet thee so we greet thee truest friend of God and man | K |
| He suffered for the ransom of the dear Redeemer's grave | L |
| Thou for His living presence in the bound and bleeding slave | L |
| He for a soil no longer by the feet of angels trod | M |
| Thou for the true Shechinah the present home of God | M |
| For while the jurist sitting with the slave whip o'er him swung | N |
| From the tortured truths of freedom the lie of slavery wrung | N |
| And the solemn priest to Moloch on each God deserted shrine | O |
| Broke the bondman's heart for bread poured the bondman's blood for wine | O |
| While the multitude in blindness to a far off Saviour knelt | P |
| And spurned the while the temple where a present Saviour dwelt | P |
| Thou beheld'st Him in the task field in the prison shadows dim | Q |
| And thy mercy to the bondman it was mercy unto Him | Q |
| In thy lone and long night watches sky above and wave below | R |
| Thou didst learn a higher wisdom than the babbling schoolmen know | R |
| God's stars and silence taught thee as His angels only can | K |
| That the one sole sacred thing beneath the cope of heaven is Man | K |
| That he who treads profanely on the scrolls of law and creed | S |
| In the depth of God's great goodness may find mercy in his need | S |
| But woe to him who crushes the soul with chain and rod | M |
| And herds with lower natures the awful form of God | M |
| Then lift that manly right hand bold ploughman of the wave | L |
| Its branded palm shall prophesy 'Salvation to the Slave ' | T |
| Hold up its fire wrought language that whoso reads may feel | U |
| His heart swell strong within him his sinews change to steel | U |
| Hold it up before our sunshine up against our Northern air | V |
| Ho men of Massachusetts for the love of God look there | V |
| Take it henceforth for your standard like the Bruce's heart of yore | W |
| In the dark strife closing round ye let that hand be seen before | W |
| And the masters of the slave land shall tremble at that sign | O |
| When it points its finger Southward along the Puritan line | O |
| Can the craft of State avail them Can a Christless church withstand | I |
| In the van of Freedom's onset the coming of that hand | I |
John Greenleaf Whittier
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