The Curse Of The Charter-breakers Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDAAEEAAFFAAGG GGGGHHIJGGKKGGGGLLMM NNGGGGGGAAAAOGLLPPGG GGQQGGAAAARRAAGGPPGG SSTTUUVVUWSSAAXYPPGG J| IN Westminster's royal halls | A |
| Robed in their pontificals | A |
| England's ancient prelates stood | B |
| For the people's right and good | B |
| Closed around the waiting crowd | C |
| Dark and still like winter's cloud | C |
| King and council lord and knight | D |
| Squire and yeoman stood in sight | D |
| Stood to hear the priest rehearse | A |
| In God's name the Church's curse | A |
| By the tapers round them lit | E |
| Slowly sternly uttering it | E |
| 'Right of voice in framing laws | A |
| Right of peers to try each cause | A |
| Peasant homestead mean and small | F |
| Sacred as the monarch's hall | F |
| 'Whoso lays his hand on these | A |
| England's ancient liberties | A |
| Whoso breaks by word or deed | G |
| England's vow at Runnymede | G |
| 'Be he Prince or belted knight | G |
| Whatsoe'er his rank or might | G |
| If the highest then the worst | G |
| Let him live and die accursed | G |
| 'Thou who to Thy Church hast given | H |
| Keys alike of hell and heaven | H |
| Make our word and witness sure | I |
| Let the curse we speak endure ' | J |
| Silent while that curse was said | G |
| Every bare and listening head | G |
| Bowed in reverent awe and then | K |
| All the people said Amen | K |
| Seven times the bells have tolled | G |
| For the centuries gray and old | G |
| Since that stoled and mitred band | G |
| Cursed the tyrants of their land | G |
| Since the priesthood like a tower | L |
| Stood between the poor and power | L |
| And the wronged and trodden down | M |
| Blessed the abbot's shaven crown | M |
| Gone thank God their wizard spell | N |
| Lost their keys of heaven and hell | N |
| Yet I sigh for men as bold | G |
| As those bearded priests of old | G |
| Now too oft the priesthood wait | G |
| At the threshold of the state | G |
| Waiting for the beck and nod | G |
| Of its power as law and God | G |
| Fraud exults while solemn words | A |
| Sanctify his stolen hoards | A |
| Slavery laughs while ghostly lips | A |
| Bless his manacles and whips | A |
| Not on them the poor rely | O |
| Not to them looks liberty | G |
| Who with fawning falsehood cower | L |
| To the wrong when clothed with power | L |
| Oh to see them meanly cling | P |
| Round the master round the king | P |
| Sported with and sold and bought | G |
| Pitifuller sight is not | G |
| Tell me not that this must be | G |
| God's true priest is always free | G |
| Free the needed truth to speak | Q |
| Right the wronged and raise the weak | Q |
| Not to fawn on wealth and state | G |
| Leaving Lazarus at the gate | G |
| Not to peddle creeds like wares | A |
| Got to mutter hireling prayers | A |
| Nor to paint the new life's bliss | A |
| On the sable ground of this | A |
| Golden streets for idle knave | R |
| Sabbath rest for weary slave | R |
| Not for words and works like these | A |
| Priest of God thy mission is | A |
| But to make earth's desert glad | G |
| In its Eden greenness clad | G |
| And to level manhood bring | P |
| Lord and peasant serf and king | P |
| And the Christ of God to find | G |
| In the humblest of thy kind | G |
| Thine to work as well as pray | S |
| Clearing thorny wrongs away | S |
| Plucking up the weeds of sin | T |
| Letting heaven's warm sunshine in | T |
| Watching on the hills of Faith | U |
| Listening what the spirit saith | U |
| Of the dim seen light afar | V |
| Growing like a nearing star | V |
| God's interpreter art thou | U |
| To the waiting ones below | W |
| 'Twixt them and its light midway | S |
| Heralding the better day | S |
| Catching gleams of temple spires | A |
| Hearing notes of angel choirs | A |
| Where as yet unseen of them | X |
| Comes the New Jerusalem | Y |
| Like the seer of Patmos gazing | P |
| On the glory downward blazing | P |
| Till upon Earth's grateful sod | G |
| Rests the City of our God | G |
| J |
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1)
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