The Relic Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCCDEDEFFFGFGFFFH FHFFIJIKHLMHMHFFGNGN OOPGPGQQFFFFGGFRFRST ULULFFFGFGLLNHNHLLFV FVWW| TOKEN Of friendship true and tried | A |
| From one whose fiery heart of youth | B |
| With mine has beaten side by side | A |
| For Liberty and Truth | B |
| With honest pride the gift I take | C |
| And prize it for the giver's sake | C |
| But not alone because it tells | D |
| Of generous hand and heart sincere | E |
| Around that gift of friendship dwells | D |
| A memory doubly dear | E |
| Earth's noblest aim man's holiest thought | F |
| With that memorial frail inwrought | F |
| Pure thoughts and sweet like flowers unfold | F |
| And precious memories round it cling | G |
| Even as the Prophet's rod of old | F |
| In beauty blossoming | G |
| And buds of feeling pure and good | F |
| Spring from its cold unconscious wood | F |
| Relic of Freedom's shrine a brand | F |
| Plucked from its burning let it be | H |
| Dear as a jewel from the hand | F |
| Of a lost friend to me | H |
| Flower of a perished garland left | F |
| Of life and beauty unbereft | F |
| Oh if the young enthusiast bears | I |
| O'er weary waste and sea the stone | J |
| Which crumbled from the Forum's stairs | I |
| Or round the Parthenon | K |
| Or olive bough from some wild tree | H |
| Hung over old Thermopyl | L |
| If leaflets from some hero's tomb | M |
| Or moss wreath torn from ruins hoary | H |
| Or faded flowers whose sisters bloom | M |
| On fields renowned in story | H |
| Or fragment from the Alhambra's crest | F |
| Or the gray rock by Druids blessed | F |
| Sad Erin's shamrock greenly growing | G |
| Where Freedom led her stalwart kern | N |
| Or Scotia's 'rough bur thistle' blowing | G |
| On Bruce's Bannockburn | N |
| Or Runnymede's wild English rose | O |
| Or lichen plucked from Sempach's snows | O |
| If it be true that things like these | P |
| To heart and eye bright visions bring | G |
| Shall not far holier memories | P |
| To this memorial cling | G |
| Which needs no mellowing mist of time | Q |
| To hide the crimson stains of crime | Q |
| Wreck of a temple unprofaned | F |
| Of courts where Peace with Freedom trod | F |
| Lifting on high with hands unstained | F |
| Thanksgiving unto God | F |
| Where Mercy's voice of love was pleading | G |
| For human hearts in bondage bleeding | G |
| Where midst the sound of rushing feet | F |
| And curses on the night air flung | R |
| That pleading voice rose calm and sweet | F |
| From woman's earnest tongue | R |
| And Riot turned his scowling glance | S |
| Awed from her tranquil countenance | T |
| That temple now in ruin lies | U |
| The fire stain on its shattered wall | L |
| And open to the changing skies | U |
| Its black and roofless hall | L |
| It stands before a nation's sight | F |
| A gravestone over buried Right | F |
| But from that ruin as of old | F |
| The fire scorched stones themselves are crying | G |
| And from their ashes white and cold | F |
| Its timbers are replying | G |
| A voice which slavery cannot kill | L |
| Speaks from the crumbling arches still | L |
| And even this relic from thy shrine | N |
| O holy Freedom hath to me | H |
| A potent power a voice and sign | N |
| To testify of thee | H |
| And grasping it methinks I feel | L |
| A deeper faith a stronger zeal | L |
| And not unlike that mystic rod | F |
| Of old stretched o'er the Egyptian wave | V |
| Which opened in the strength of God | F |
| A pathway for the slave | V |
| It yet may point the bondman's way | W |
| And turn the spoiler from his prey | W |
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1)
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