The Waiting Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAAB CDCCD EFEEF GHGGH IEIIE JKJJK| I wait and watch before my eyes | A |
| Methinks the night grows thin and gray | B |
| I wait and watch the eastern skies | A |
| To see the golden spears uprise | A |
| Beneath the oriflamme of day | B |
| - | |
| Like one whose limbs are bound in trance | C |
| I hear the day sounds swell and grow | D |
| And see across the twilight glance | C |
| Troop after troop in swift advance | C |
| The shining ones with plumes of snow | D |
| - | |
| I know the errand of their feet | E |
| I know what mighty work is theirs | F |
| I can but lift up hands unmeet | E |
| The threshing floors of God to beat | E |
| And speed them with unworthy prayers | F |
| - | |
| I will not dream in vain despair | G |
| The steps of progress wait for me | H |
| The puny leverage of a hair | G |
| The planet's impulse well may spare | G |
| A drop of dew the tided sea | H |
| - | |
| The loss if loss there be is mine | I |
| And yet not mine if understood | E |
| For one shall grasp and one resign | I |
| One drink life's rue and one its wine | I |
| And God shall make the balance good | E |
| - | |
| Oh power to do Oh baffled will | J |
| Oh prayer and action ye are one | K |
| Who may not strive may yet fulfil | J |
| The harder task of standing still | J |
| And good but wished with God is done | K |
John Greenleaf Whittier
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