The Voices Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCEFGFGHIJIKLKM ANANOPQPRLRLSFSFTUTU RRRRVWVWJXJXRYRYRRRR ZJA2JRB2RB2RRRRRC2RC 2D2FD2FRRRM| 'WHY urge the long unequal fight | A |
| Since Truth has fallen in the street | B |
| Or lift anew the trampled light | A |
| Quenched by the heedless million's feet | B |
| 'Give o'er the thankless task forsake | C |
| The fools who know not ill from good | D |
| Eat drink enjoy thy own and take | C |
| Thine ease among the multitude | E |
| 'Live out thyself with others share | F |
| Thy proper life no more assume | G |
| The unconcern of sun and air | F |
| For life or death or blight or bloom | G |
| 'The mountain pine looks calmly on | H |
| The fires that scourge the plains below | I |
| Nor heeds the eagle in the sun | J |
| The small birds piping in the snow | I |
| 'The world is God's not thine let Him | K |
| Work out a change if change must be | L |
| The hand that planted best can trim | K |
| And nurse the old unfruitful tree ' | M |
| So spake the Tempter when the light | A |
| Of sun and stars had left the sky | N |
| I listened through the cloud and night | A |
| And heard methought a voice reply | N |
| 'Thy task may well seem over hard | O |
| Who scatterest in a thankless soil | P |
| Thy life as seed with no reward | Q |
| Save that which Duty gives to Toil | P |
| 'Not wholly is thy heart resigned | R |
| To Heaven's benign and just decree | L |
| Which linking thee with all thy kind | R |
| Transmits their joys and griefs to thee | L |
| 'Break off that sacred chain and turn | S |
| Back on thyself thy love and care | F |
| Be thou thine own mean idol burn | S |
| Faith Hope and Trust thy children there | F |
| 'Released from that fraternal law | T |
| Which shares the common bale and bliss | U |
| No sadder lot could Folly draw | T |
| Or Sin provoke from Fate than this | U |
| 'The meal unshared is food unblest | R |
| Thou hoard'st in vain what love should spend | R |
| Self ease is pain thy only rest | R |
| Is labor for a worthy end | R |
| 'A toil that gains with what it yields | V |
| And scatters to its own increase | W |
| And hears while sowing outward fields | V |
| The harvest song of inward peace | W |
| 'Free lipped the liberal streamlets run | J |
| Free shines for all the healthful ray | X |
| The still pool stagnates in the sun | J |
| The lurid earth fire haunts decay | X |
| 'What is it that the crowd requite | R |
| Thy love with hate thy truth with lies | Y |
| And but to faith and not to sight | R |
| The walls of Freedom's temple rise | Y |
| 'Yet do thy work it shall succeed | R |
| In thine or in another's day | R |
| And if denied the victor's meed | R |
| Thou shalt not lack the toiler's pay | R |
| 'Faith shares the future's promise Love's | Z |
| Self offering is a triumph won | J |
| And each good thought or action moves | A2 |
| The dark world nearer to the sun | J |
| 'Then faint not falter not nor plead | R |
| Thy weakness truth itself is strong | B2 |
| The lion's strength the eagle's speed | R |
| Are not alone vouchsafed to wrong | B2 |
| 'Thy nature which through fire and flood | R |
| To place or gain finds out its way | R |
| Hath power to seek the highest good | R |
| And duty's holiest call obey | R |
| 'Strivest thou in darkness Foes without | R |
| In league with traitor thoughts within | C2 |
| Thy night watch kept with trembling Doubt | R |
| And pale Remorse the ghost of Sin | C2 |
| 'Hast thou not on some week of storm | D2 |
| Seen the sweet Sabbath breaking fair | F |
| And cloud and shadow sunlit form | D2 |
| The curtains of its tent of prayer | F |
| 'So haply when thy task shall end | R |
| The wrong shall lose itself in right | R |
| And all thy week day darkness blend | R |
| With the long Sabbath of the light ' | M |
John Greenleaf Whittier
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