Conscription Camp Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCD EFGH IJKL MNOP OQRS TUVL RWXY ZA2B2R B2B2C2D2 E2F2B2G2 H2B2I2B2 J2K2J2L2 B2B2M2N2 O2P2Q2R2 B2ZS2F B2B2P2T2

Your landscape sickens with a dry diseaseA
Even in May Virginia and your sweet pinesB
Like Frenchmen runted in a hundred warsC
Are of a child s height in these battlefieldsD
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For Wilson sowed his teeth where generals prayedE
High sounding Lafayette and sick eyed LeeF
The loud Elizabethan crashed your swampsG
Like elephants and the subtle Indian fellH
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Is it for love you ancient minded townsI
That on the tidy grass of your great gravesJ
And on your roads and riverways sereneK
Between the corn with green flags in a rowL
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Wheat amorous as hair and hills like breastsM
Each generation ignorant of the lastN
Mumbling in sheds embarrassed to saluteO
Comes back to choke on etiquette of hateP
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You manufacture history like juteO
Labor is cheap Virginia for high deedsQ
But in your British dream of reputationR
The black man is your conscience and your costS
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Here on the plains perfect for civil warT
The clapboard city like a weak mirageU
Of order rises from the sand to houseV
These thousands and the paranoid MonroeL
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The sunrise gun rasps in the throat of heavenR
The lungs of dawn are heavy and corruptW
We hawk and spit our flag walks through the airX
Breathing hysteria thickly in each faceY
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Through the long school of day absent in heartZ
Distant in every thought but self we treadA2
Wheeling in blocks like large expensive toysB2
That never understand except through funR
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To steal aside as aimlessly as cursB2
Is our desire to stare at corporalsB2
As sceptically as boys not to believeC2
The misty eyed letter and the cheap snapshotD2
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To cross the unnatural frontier of your nameE2
Is our free dream Virginia and beyondF2
White and unpatriotic in our bedsB2
To rise from sleep like driftwood out of surfG2
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But stricter than parole is this same wallH2
And these green clothes a secret on the fieldsB2
In towns betray us to the arresting touchI2
Of lady wardens good and evil wivesB2
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And far and fabulous is the word OutsideJ2
Like Europe when the midnight liners sailedK2
Leaving a wake of ermine on the tideJ2
Where rubies drowned and eyes were softly drunkL2
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Still we abhor your news and every voiceB2
Except the Personal Enemy s and songsB2
That pumped by the great central heart of loveM2
On tides of energy at evening comeN2
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Instinctively to break your compact lawO2
Box within box Virginia and throw downP2
The dangerous bright habits of pure formQ2
We struggle hideously and cry for fearR2
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And like a very tired whore who standsB2
Wrapped in the sensual crimson of her artZ
High in the tired doorway of a streetS2
And beckons half concealed the passerbyF
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The sun Virginia on your Western stairsB2
Pauses and smiles away between the treesB2
Motioning the soldier overhill to townP2
To his determined hungry burst of joyT2

Karl Shapiro



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