The Hero Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCB DEFE GHIH JKLK ABC DMNM BHAH OHPH BQRQ DSTS GUVU WHHH OBFB TXBX TYHY FZO HH LHBG A2BLB B2SC2S GD2BD2 GE2F2E2 TG2HG2 BH2BH2 I2HJ2H BBJ2B'O for a knight like Bayard | A |
Without reproach or fear | B |
My light glove on his casque of steel | C |
My love knot on his spear | B |
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'O for the white plume floating | D |
Sad Zutphen's field above | E |
The lion heart in battle | F |
The woman's heart in love | E |
- | |
'O that man once more were manly | G |
Woman's pride and not her scorn | H |
That once more the pale young mother | I |
Dared to boast a man is born' | H |
- | |
'But now life's slumberous current | J |
No sun bowed cascade wakes | K |
No tall heroic manhood | L |
The level dulness breaks | K |
- | |
'O for a knight like Bayard | A |
Without reproach or fear | B |
My light glove on his casque of steel | C |
My love knot on his spear ' | - |
- | |
Then I said my own heart throbbing | D |
To the time her proud pulse beat | M |
'Life hath its regal natures yet | N |
True tender brave and sweet | M |
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'Smile not fair unbeliever | B |
One man at least I know | H |
Who might wear the crest of Bayard | A |
Or Sydney's plume of snow | H |
- | |
'Once when over purple mountains | O |
Died away the Grecian sun | H |
And the far Cyllenian ranges | P |
Paled and darkened one by one | H |
- | |
'Fell the Turk a bolt of thunder | B |
Cleaving all the quiet sky | Q |
And against his sharp steel lightnings | R |
Stood the Suliote but to die | Q |
- | |
'Woe for the weak and halting | D |
The crescent blazed behind | S |
A curving line of sabres | T |
Like fire before the wind | S |
- | |
'Last to fly and first to rally | G |
Rode he of whom I speak | U |
When groaning in his bridle path | V |
Sank down like a wounded Greek | U |
- | |
'With the rich Albanian costume | W |
Wet with many a ghastly stain | H |
Gazing on earth and sky as one | H |
Who might not gaze again | H |
- | |
'He looked forward to the mountains | O |
Back on foes that never spare | B |
Then flung him from his saddle | F |
And place the stranger there | B |
- | |
''Allah hu ' Through flashing sabres | T |
Through a stormy hail of lead | X |
The good Thessalian charger | B |
Up the slopes of olives sped | X |
- | |
'Hot spurred the turbaned riders | T |
He almost felt their breath | Y |
Where a mountain stream rolled darkly down | H |
Between the hills and death | Y |
- | |
'One brave and manful struggle | F |
He gained the solid land | Z |
And the cover of the mountains | O |
And the carbines of his band ' | - |
- | |
'It was very great and noble ' | - |
Said the moist eyed listener then | H |
'But one brave deed makes no hero | H |
Tell me what he since hath been ' | - |
- | |
'Still a brave and generous manhood | L |
Still and honor without stain | H |
In the prison of the Kaiser | B |
By the barricades of Seine | G |
- | |
'But dream not helm and harness | A2 |
The sign of valor true | B |
Peace bath higher tests of manhood | L |
Than battle ever knew | B |
- | |
'Wouldst know him now Behold him | B2 |
The Cadmus of the blind | S |
Giving the dumb lip language | C2 |
The idiot clay a mind | S |
- | |
'Walking his round of duty | G |
Serenely day by day | D2 |
With the strong man's hand of labor | B |
And childhood's heart of play | D2 |
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'True as the knights of story | G |
Sir Lancelot and his peers | E2 |
Brave in his calm endurance | F2 |
As they in tilt of spears | E2 |
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'As waves in stillest waters | T |
As stars in noonday skies | G2 |
All that wakes to noble action | H |
In his noon of calmness lies | G2 |
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'Wherever outraged Nature | B |
Asks word or action brave | H2 |
Wherever struggles labor | B |
Wherever groans a slave | H2 |
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'Wherever rise the peoples | I2 |
Wherever sinks a throne | H |
The throbbing heart of Freedom finds | J2 |
An answer in his own | H |
- | |
'Knight of a better era | B |
Without reproach or fear | B |
Said I not well that Bayards | J2 |
And Sidneys still are here | B |
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1)
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