To Englishmen Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAABCBCCBDEDDEFGFFH IBIIBCJCCJABAABKLKKL JGJJGBJBBIBMBBM| You flung your taunt across the wave | A |
| We bore it as became us | B |
| Well knowing that the fettered slave | A |
| Left friendly lips no option save | A |
| To pity or to blame us | B |
| You scoffed our plea 'Mere lack of will | C |
| Not lack of power ' you told us | B |
| We showed our free state records still | C |
| You mocked confounding good and ill | C |
| Slave haters and slaveholders | B |
| We struck at Slavery to the verge | D |
| Of power and means we checked it | E |
| Lo presto change its claims you urge | D |
| Send greetings to it o'er the surge | D |
| And comfort and protect it | E |
| But yesterday you scarce could shake | F |
| In slave abhorring rigor | G |
| Our Northern palms for conscience' sake | F |
| To day you clasp the hands that ache | F |
| With 'walloping the nigger ' | H |
| O Englishmen in hope and creed | I |
| In blood and tongue our brothers | B |
| We too are heirs of Runnymede | I |
| And Shakespeare's fame and Cromwell's deed | I |
| Are not alone our mother's | B |
| 'Thicker than water ' in one rill | C |
| Through centuries of story | J |
| Our Saxon blood has flowed and still | C |
| We share with you its good and ill | C |
| The shadow and the glory | J |
| Joint heirs and kinfolk leagues of wave | A |
| Nor length of years can part us | B |
| Your right is ours to shrine and grave | A |
| The common freehold of the brave | A |
| The gift of saints and martyrs | B |
| Our very sins and follies teach | K |
| Our kindred frail and human | L |
| We carp at faults with bitter speech | K |
| The while for one unshared by each | K |
| We have a score in common | L |
| We bowed the heart if not the knee | J |
| To England's Queen God bless her | G |
| We praised you when your slaves went free | J |
| We seek to unchain ours Will ye | J |
| Join hands with the oppressor | G |
| And is it Christian England cheers | B |
| The bruiser not the bruis d | J |
| And must she run despite the tears | B |
| And prayers of eighteen hundred years | B |
| Amuck in Slavery's crusade | I |
| Oh black disgrace Oh shame and loss | B |
| Too deep for tongue to phrase on | M |
| Tear from your flag its holy cross | B |
| And in your van of battle toss | B |
| The pirate's skull bone blazon | M |
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1)
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