Fallen Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AAAAAA AAAAAA BABBAA CDCCDD EFEEGF HAHHAA IDIIDD JKJJKK ADAAAA LMLLMM NANNAA OPOOPP AQAAQQ RSRRSS

My country by our fathers rearedA
As champion of the world's opprestA
Whose moral force the tyrant fearedA
Whose flag all struggling freemen cheeredA
In clutching at an empire's crestA
Thou too art fallen like the restA
-
Not in thy numbers wealth or mightA
Proud mistress of a continentA
For rival nations at the sightA
Of thy resources view with frightA
Thy progress without precedentA
Not there is seen thy swift descentA
-
Reread the story of thy birthB
Recall the years in conflict spentA
To prove to a despairing earthB
That every Government of worthB
Is really based on free consentA
Then view with shame thy present bentA
-
Thou hadst a place unique sublimeC
In many a land beyond the seaD
The victims of despotic crimeC
In thee the latest born of TimeC
Beheld a land from tyrants freeD
The sacred Ark of LibertyD
-
But now the Old World's lust for landsE
Infects thee too the dread diseaseF
Hath left its plague spots on thy handsE
Thy monster area still expandsE
For blind to history's NemesisG
Thou too wouldst alien races seizeF
-
Condemning with profound disdainH
All other nations' heartless greedA
How couldst thou buy from humbled SpainH
A people struggling to attainH
A freedom suited to their needA
Why stultify thy boasted creedA
-
Thine aid to them thou mightst have givenI
As France her aid once gave to theeD
With them thy sons might well have strivenI
And their blood rusted fetters rivenI
But why in Heaven's name should weD
Shoot men aspiring to be freeD
-
I tread the fields where thousands sleepJ
The blood soaked fields that freed the slaveK
What precious memories still they keepJ
For hearts that mourn and eyes that weepJ
Yet for the lives those heroes gaveK
What have we that they died to saveK
-
A Union Yes outstretched in mightA
From snow to palm from sea to seaD
But pledged to use its strength arightA
And evermore to keep alightA
The torch of human libertyA
Is this the Union that we seeA
-
Where history's Martyr dared to breakL
The power that held a race in chainsM
I see the ghastly lynching stakeL
Where brutal mobs their vengeance takeL
And since no law their course restrainsM
Gloat o'er their writhing victim's painsM
-
Race hatred born of groundless fearsN
And narrow prejudice of casteA
Now greets the cultured black with sneersN
And barring him from high careersN
Breaks like a mad iconoclastA
The nation's idols of the pastA
-
No more can we with steadfast eyesO
Protest when tortured races moanP
With hands uplifted toward the skiesO
Their tyrants answer with surpriseO
And new born insolence of toneP
These are our lynchings cure your ownP
-
Yet hope remains A path retracedA
Is nobler than persistent wrongQ
A fault confessed is half effacedA
That land alone can be disgracedA
Which is not just however strongQ
Toward those to whom its spoils belongQ
-
My country Would to God that praiseR
Might leave my lips instead of blameS
So near the parting of the waysR
Subjected to the eager gazeR
Of millions jealous of thy fameS
Retrace the path that ends in shameS

John L. Stoddard



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