The Slaves Of Martinique Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJ KKKKLLMMDDNNOOPPQQNN AANNCCRSKKTTNNUUVHNN WWNSXXNNKKYY| BEAMS of noon like burning lances through the tree tops flash and glisten | A |
| As she stands before her lover with raised face to look and listen | A |
| Dark but comely like the maiden in the ancient Jewish song | B |
| Scarcely has the toil of task fields done her graceful beauty wrong | B |
| He the strong one and the manly with the vassal's garb and hue | C |
| Holding still his spirit's birthright to his higher nature true | C |
| Hiding deep the strengthening purpose of a freeman in his heart | D |
| As the gregree holds his Fetich from the white man's gaze apart | D |
| Ever foremost of his comrades when the driver's morning horn | E |
| Calls away to stifling mill house to the fields of cane and corn | E |
| Fall the keen and burning lashes never on his back or limb | F |
| Scarce with look or word of censure turns the driver unto him | F |
| Yet his brow is always thoughtful and his eye is hard and stern | G |
| Slavery's last and humblest lesson he has never deigned to learn | G |
| And at evening when his comrades dance before their master's door | H |
| Folding arms and knitting forehead stands he silent evermore | H |
| God be praised for every instinct which rebels against a lot | I |
| Where the brute survives the human and man's upright form is not | I |
| As the serpent like bejuco winds his spiral fold on fold | J |
| Round the tall and stately ceiba till it withers in his hold | J |
| Slow decays the forest monarch closer girds the fell embrace | K |
| Till the tree is seen no longer and the vine is in its place | K |
| So a base and bestial nature round the vassal's manhood twines | K |
| And the spirit wastes beneath it like the ceiba choked with vines | K |
| God is Love saith the Evangel and our world of woe and sin | L |
| Is made light and happy only when a Love is shining in | L |
| Ye whose lives are free as sunshine finding wheresoe'er ye roam | M |
| Smiles of welcome looks of kindness making all the world like home | M |
| In the veins of whose affections kindred blood is but a part | D |
| Of one kindly current throbbing from the universal heart | D |
| Can ye know the deeper meaning of a love in Slavery nursed | N |
| Last flower of a lost Eden blooming in that Soil accursed | N |
| Love of Home and Love of Woman dear to all but doubly dear | O |
| To the heart whose pulses elsewhere measure only hate and fear | O |
| All around the desert circles underneath a brazen sky | P |
| Only one green spot remaining where the dew is never dry | P |
| From the horror of that desert from its atmosphere of hell | Q |
| Turns the fainting spirit thither as the diver seeks his bell | Q |
| 'Tis the fervid tropic noontime faint and low the sea waves beat | N |
| Hazy rise the inland mountains through the glimmer of the heat | N |
| Where through mingled leaves and blossoms arrowy sunbeams flash and glisten | A |
| Speaks her lover to the slave girl and she lifts her head to listen | A |
| 'We shall live as slaves no longer Freedom's hour is close at hand | N |
| Rocks her bark upon the waters rests the boat upon the strand | N |
| 'I have seen the Haytien Captain I have seen his swarthy crew | C |
| Haters of the pallid faces to their race and color true | C |
| 'They have sworn to wait our coming till the night has passed its noon | R |
| And the gray and darkening waters roll above the sunken moon ' | S |
| Oh the blessed hope of freedom how with joy and glad surprise | K |
| For an instant throbs her bosom for an instant beam her eyes | K |
| But she looks across the valley where her mother's hut is seen | T |
| Through the snowy bloom of coffee and the lemon leaves so green | T |
| And she answers sad and earnest 'It were wrong for thee to stay | N |
| God hath heard thy prayer for freedom and his finger points the way | N |
| 'Well I know with what endurance for the sake of me and mine | U |
| Thou hast borne too long a burden never meant for souls like thine | U |
| 'Go and at the hour of midnight when our last farewell is o'er | V |
| Kneeling on our place of parting I will bless thee from the shore | H |
| 'But for me my mother lying on her sick bed all the day | N |
| Lifts her weary head to watch me coming through the twilight gray | N |
| 'Should I leave her sick and helpless even freedom shared with thee | W |
| Would be sadder far than bondage lonely toil and stripes to me | W |
| 'For my heart would die within me and my brain would soon be wild | N |
| I should hear my mother calling through the twilight for her child ' | S |
| Blazing upward from the ocean shines the sun of morning time | X |
| Through the coffee trees in blossom and green hedges of the lime | X |
| Side by side amidst the slave gang toil the lover and the maid | N |
| Wherefore looks he o'er the waters leaning forward on his spade | N |
| Sadly looks he deeply sighs he 't is the Haytien's sail he sees | K |
| Like a white cloud of the mountains driven seaward by the breeze | K |
| But his arm a light hand presses and he hears a low voice call | Y |
| Hate of Slavery hope of Freedom Love is mightier than all | Y |
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1)
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