The Quaker Alumni Poem Rhyme Scheme

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From the well springs of Hudson the sea cliffs of Maine	A
Grave men sober matrons you gather again	B
And with hearts warmer grown as your heads grow more cool	C
Play over the old game of going to school	C
	-
All your strifes and vexations your whims and complaints	D
You were not saints yourselves if the children of saints	D
All your petty self seekings and rivalries done	E
Round the dear Alma Mater your hearts beat as one	E
	-
How widely soe'er you have strayed from the fold	F
Though your 'thee' has grown 'you ' and your drab blue and gold	F
To the old friendly speech and the garb's sober form	G
Like the heart of Argyle to the tartan you warm	G
	-
But the first greetings over you glance round the hall	H
Your hearts call the roll but they answer not all	H
Through the turf green above them the dead cannot hear	I
Name by name in the silence falls sad as a tear	J
	-
In love let us trust they were summoned so soon	K
rom the morning of life while we toil through its noon	K
They were frail like ourselves they had needs like our own	L
And they rest as we rest in God's mercy alone	L
	-
Unchanged by our changes of spirit and frame	M
Past now and henceforward the Lord is the same	M
Though we sink in the darkness His arms break our fall	H
And in death as in life He is Father of all	H
	-
We are older our footsteps so light in the play	N
Of the far away school time move slower to day	N
Here a beard touched with frost there a bald shining crown	O
And beneath the cap's border gray mingles with brown	O
	-
But faith should be cheerful and trust should be glad	P
And our follies and sins not our years make us sad	P
Should the heart closer shut as the bonnet grows prim	Q
And the face grow in length as the hat grows in brim	Q
	-
Life is brief duty grave but with rain folded wings	R
Of yesterday's sunshine the grateful heart sings	R
And we of all others have reason to pay	N
The tribute of thanks and rejoice on our way	N
	-
For the counsels that turned from the follies of youth	S
For the beauty of patience the whiteness of truth	S
For the wounds of rebuke when love tempered its edge	T
For the household's restraint and the discipline's hedge	T
	-
For the lessons of kindness vouchsafed to the least	U
Of the creatures of God whether human or beast	U
Bringing hope to the poor lending strength to the frail	V
In the lanes of the city the slave hut and jail	V
	-
For a womanhood higher and holier by all	H
Her knowledge of good than was Eve ere her fall	H
Whose task work of duty moves lightly as play	N
Serene as the moonlight and warm as the day	N
	-
And yet more for the faith which embraces the whole	W
Of the creeds of the ages the life and the soul	W
Wherein letter and spirit the same channel run	E
And man has not severed what God has made one	E
	-
For a sense of the Goodness revealed everywhere	J
As sunshine impartial and free as the air	J
For a trust in humanity Heathen or Jew	X
And a hope for all darkness the Light shineth through	X
	-
Who scoffs at our birthright the words of the seers	Y
And the songs of the bards in the twilight of years	Z
All the foregleams of wisdom in santon and sage	A2
In prophet and priest are our true heritage	B2
	-
The Word which the reason of Plato discerned	C2
The truth as whose symbol the Mithra fire burned	C2
The soul of the world which the Stoic but guessed	D2
In the Light Universal the Quaker confessed	D2
	-
No honors of war to our worthies belong	E2
Their plain stem of life never flowered into song	E2
But the fountains they opened still gush by the way	N
And the world for their healing is better to day	N
	-
He who lies where the minster's groined arches curve down	O
To the tomb crowded transept of England's renown	O
The glorious essayist by genius enthroned	N
Whose pen as a sceptre the Muses all owned	N
	-
Who through the world's pantheon walked in his pride	N
Setting new statues up thrusting old ones aside	N
And in fiction the pencils of history dipped	N
To gild o'er or blacken each saint in his crypt	N
	-
How vainly he labored to sully with blame	M
The white bust of Penn in the niche of his fame	M
Self will is self wounding perversity blind	N
On himself fell the stain for the Quaker designed	N
	-
For the sake of his true hearted father before him	Q
For the sake of the dear Quaker mother that bore him	Q
For the sake of his gifts and the works that outlive him	Q
And his brave words for freedom we freely forgive him	Q
	-
There are those who take note that our numbers are small	H
New Gibbons who write our decline and our fall	H
But the Lord of the seed field takes care of His own	L
And the world shall yet reap what our sowers have sown	L
	-
The last of the sect to his fathers may go	F2
Leaving only his coat for some Barnum to show	F2
But the truth will outlive him and broaden with years	Z
Till the false dies away and the wrong disappears	Z
	-
Nothing fails of its end Out of sight sinks the stone	L
In the deep sea of time but the circles sweep on	G2
Till the low rippled murmurs along the shores run	E
And the dark and dead waters leap glad in the sun	E
	-
Meanwhile shall we learn in our ease to forget	N
To the martyrs of Truth and of Freedom our debt	N
Hide their words out of sight like the garb that they wore	H2
And for Barclay's Apology offer one more	H2
	-
Shall we fawn round the priestcraft that glutted the shears	Y
And festooned the stocks with our grandfathers' ears	Z
Talk of Woolman's unsoundness count Penn heterodox	I2
And take Cotton Mather in place of George Fox	I2
	-
Make our preachers war chaplains quote Scripture to take	J2
The hunted slave back for Onesimus' sake	J2
Go to burning church candles and chanting in choir	K2
And on the old meeting house stick up a spire	L2
	-
No the old paths we'll keep until better are shown	L
Credit good where we find it abroad or our own	L
And while 'Lo here' and 'Lo there' the multitude call	H
Be true to ourselves and do justice to all	H
	-
The good round about us we need not refuse	M2
Nor talk of our Zion as if we were Jews	M2
But why shirk the badge which our fathers have worn	N2
Or beg the world's pardon for having been born	N2
	-
We need not pray over the Pharisee's prayer	J
Nor claim that our wisdom is Benjamin's share	J
Truth to us and to others is equal and one	E
Shall we bottle the free air or hoard up the sun	E
	-
Well know we our birthright may serve but to show	F2
How the meanest of weeds in the richest soil grow	F2
But we need not disparage the good which we hold	N
Though the vessels be earthen the treasure is gold	N
	-
Enough and too much of the sect and the name	M
What matters our label so truth be our aim	M
The creed may be wrong but the life may be true	X
And hearts beat the same under drab coats or blue	X
	-
So the man be a man let him worship at will	O2
In Jerusalem's courts or on Gerizim's hill	O2
When she makes up her jewels what cares yon good town	O
For the Baptist of Wayland the Quaker of Brown	O
	-
And this green favored island so fresh and seablown	O
When she counts up the worthies her annals have known	O
Never waits for the pitiful gaugers of sect	N
To measure her love and mete out her respect	N
	-
Three shades at this moment seem walking her strand	N
Each with head halo crowned and with palms in his hand	N
Wise Berkeley grave Hopkins and smiling serene	O
On prelate and puritan Channing is seen	O
	-
One holy name bearing no longer they need	N
Credentials of party and pass words of creed	N
The new song they sing hath a threefold accord	N
And they own one baptism one faith and one Lord	N
	-
But the golden sands run out occasions like these	P2
Glide swift into shadow like sails on the seas	P2
While we sport with the mosses and pebbles ashore	H2
They lessen and fade and we see them no more	H2
	-
Forgive me dear friends if my vagrant thoughts seem	Q2
Like a school boy's who idles and plays with his theme	Q2
Forgive the light measure whose changes display	N
The sunshine and rain of our brief April day	N
	-
There are moments in life when the lip and the eye	R2
Try the question of whether to smile or to cry	R2
And scenes and reunions that prompt like our own	O
The tender in feeling the playful in tone	O
	-
I who never sat down with the boys and the girls	S2
At t	N

John Greenleaf Whittier

The Quaker Alumni Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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