The Lost Occasion Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBBCCDEFG HHIIJJKKLLMMNNOOPPQQ DD RBDDSSTGUUBBBBVVBBBB BBBBBWWBB RRBBBBXYBBZZBBA2B2C2 C2BBD2D2BB| Some die too late and some too soon | A |
| At early morning heat of noon | A |
| Or the chill evening twilight Thou | B |
| Whom the rich heavens did so endow | B |
| With eyes of power and Jove's own brow | B |
| With all the massive strength that fills | C |
| Thy home horizon's granite hills | C |
| With rarest gifts of heart and head | D |
| From manliest stock inherited | E |
| New England's stateliest type of man | F |
| In port and speech Olympian | G |
| - | |
| Whom no one met at first but took | H |
| A second awed and wondering look | H |
| As turned perchance the eyes of Greece | I |
| On Phidias' unveiled masterpiece | I |
| Whose words in simplest homespun clad | J |
| The Saxon strength of Caedmon's had | J |
| With power reserved at need to reach | K |
| The Roman forum's loftiest speech | K |
| Sweet with persuasion eloquent | L |
| In passion cool in argument | L |
| Or ponderous falling on thy foes | M |
| As fell the Norse god's hammer blows | M |
| Crushing as if with Talus' flail | N |
| Through Error's logic woven mail | N |
| And failing only when they tried | O |
| The adamant of the righteous side | O |
| Thou foiled in aim and hope bereaved | P |
| Of old friends by the new deceived | P |
| Too soon for us too soon for thee | Q |
| Beside thy lonely Northern sea | Q |
| Where long and low the marsh lands spread | D |
| Laid wearily down thy August head | D |
| - | |
| Thou shouldst have lived to feel below | R |
| Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow | B |
| The late sprung mine that underlaid | D |
| Thy sad concessions vainly made | D |
| Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's wall | S |
| The star flag of the Union fall | S |
| And armed rebellion pressing on | T |
| The broken lines of Washington | G |
| No stronger voice than thine had then | U |
| Called out the utmost might of men | U |
| To make the Union's charter free | B |
| And strengthen law by liberty | B |
| How had that stern arbitrament | B |
| To thy gray age youth's vigor lent | B |
| Shaming ambition's paltry prize | V |
| Before thy disillusioned eyes | V |
| Breaking the spell about thee wound | B |
| Like the green withes that Samson bound | B |
| Redeeming in one effort grand | B |
| Thyself and thy imperilled land | B |
| Ah cruel fate that closed to thee | B |
| O sleeper by the Northern sea | B |
| The gates of opportunity | B |
| God fills the gaps of human need | B |
| Each crisis brings its word and deed | B |
| Wise men and strong we did not lack | W |
| But still with memory turning back | W |
| In the dark hours we thought of thee | B |
| And thy lone grave beside the sea | B |
| - | |
| Above that grave the east winds blow | R |
| And from the marsh lands drifting slow | R |
| The sea fog comes with evermore | B |
| The wave wash of a lonely shore | B |
| And sea bird's melancholy cry | B |
| As Nature fain would typify | B |
| The sadness of a closing scene | X |
| The loss of that which should have been | Y |
| But where thy native mountains bare | B |
| Their foreheads to diviner air | B |
| Fit emblem of enduring fame | Z |
| One lofty summit keeps thy name | Z |
| For thee the cosmic forces did | B |
| The rearing of that pyramid | B |
| The prescient ages shaping with | A2 |
| Fire flood and frost thy monolith | B2 |
| Sunrise and sunset lay thereon | C2 |
| With hands of light their benison | C2 |
| The stars of midnight pause to set | B |
| Their jewels in its coronet | B |
| And evermore that mountain mass | D2 |
| Seems climbing from the shadowy pass | D2 |
| To light as if to manifest | B |
| Thy nobler self thy life at best | B |
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1)
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