Conscription Camp Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCD EFGH IJKL MNOP OQRS TUVL RWXY ZA2B2R B2B2C2D2 E2F2B2G2 H2B2I2B2 J2K2J2L2 B2B2M2N2 O2P2Q2R2 B2ZS2F B2B2P2T2Your landscape sickens with a dry disease | A |
Even in May Virginia and your sweet pines | B |
Like Frenchmen runted in a hundred wars | C |
Are of a child s height in these battlefields | D |
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For Wilson sowed his teeth where generals prayed | E |
High sounding Lafayette and sick eyed Lee | F |
The loud Elizabethan crashed your swamps | G |
Like elephants and the subtle Indian fell | H |
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Is it for love you ancient minded towns | I |
That on the tidy grass of your great graves | J |
And on your roads and riverways serene | K |
Between the corn with green flags in a row | L |
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Wheat amorous as hair and hills like breasts | M |
Each generation ignorant of the last | N |
Mumbling in sheds embarrassed to salute | O |
Comes back to choke on etiquette of hate | P |
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You manufacture history like jute | O |
Labor is cheap Virginia for high deeds | Q |
But in your British dream of reputation | R |
The black man is your conscience and your cost | S |
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Here on the plains perfect for civil war | T |
The clapboard city like a weak mirage | U |
Of order rises from the sand to house | V |
These thousands and the paranoid Monroe | L |
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The sunrise gun rasps in the throat of heaven | R |
The lungs of dawn are heavy and corrupt | W |
We hawk and spit our flag walks through the air | X |
Breathing hysteria thickly in each face | Y |
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Through the long school of day absent in heart | Z |
Distant in every thought but self we tread | A2 |
Wheeling in blocks like large expensive toys | B2 |
That never understand except through fun | R |
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To steal aside as aimlessly as curs | B2 |
Is our desire to stare at corporals | B2 |
As sceptically as boys not to believe | C2 |
The misty eyed letter and the cheap snapshot | D2 |
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To cross the unnatural frontier of your name | E2 |
Is our free dream Virginia and beyond | F2 |
White and unpatriotic in our beds | B2 |
To rise from sleep like driftwood out of surf | G2 |
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But stricter than parole is this same wall | H2 |
And these green clothes a secret on the fields | B2 |
In towns betray us to the arresting touch | I2 |
Of lady wardens good and evil wives | B2 |
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And far and fabulous is the word Outside | J2 |
Like Europe when the midnight liners sailed | K2 |
Leaving a wake of ermine on the tide | J2 |
Where rubies drowned and eyes were softly drunk | L2 |
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Still we abhor your news and every voice | B2 |
Except the Personal Enemy s and songs | B2 |
That pumped by the great central heart of love | M2 |
On tides of energy at evening come | N2 |
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Instinctively to break your compact law | O2 |
Box within box Virginia and throw down | P2 |
The dangerous bright habits of pure form | Q2 |
We struggle hideously and cry for fear | R2 |
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And like a very tired whore who stands | B2 |
Wrapped in the sensual crimson of her art | Z |
High in the tired doorway of a street | S2 |
And beckons half concealed the passerby | F |
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The sun Virginia on your Western stairs | B2 |
Pauses and smiles away between the trees | B2 |
Motioning the soldier overhill to town | P2 |
To his determined hungry burst of joy | T2 |
Karl Shapiro
(1)
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