The Conscientious Objector Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFBD GHIJKILI MNOMPKIP HBQBIRII| The gates clanged and they walked you into jail | A |
| More tense than felons but relieved to find | B |
| The hostile world shut out the flags that dripped | C |
| From every mother s windowpane obscene | D |
| The bloodlust sweating from the public heart | E |
| The dog authority slavering at your throat | F |
| A sense of quiet of pulling down the blind | B |
| Possessed you Punishment you felt was clean | D |
| - | |
| - | |
| The decks the catwalks and the narrow light | G |
| Composed a ship This was a mutinous crew | H |
| Troubling the captains for plain decencies | I |
| A Mayflower brim with pilgrims headed out | J |
| To establish new theocracies to west | K |
| A Noah s ark coasting the topmost seas | I |
| Ten miles above the sodomites and fish | L |
| These inmates loved the only living doves | I |
| - | |
| - | |
| Like all men hunted from the world you made | M |
| A good community voyaging the storm | N |
| To no safe Plymouth or green Ararat | O |
| Trouble or calm the men with Bibles prayed | M |
| The gaunt politicals construed our hate | P |
| The opposite of all armies you were best | K |
| Opposing uniformity and yourselves | I |
| Prison and personality were your fate | P |
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| - | |
| You suffered not so physically but knew | H |
| Maltreatment hunger ennui of the mind | B |
| Well might the soldier kissing the hot beach | Q |
| Erupting in his face damn all your kind | B |
| Yet you who saved neither yourselves nor us | I |
| Are equally with those who shed the blood | R |
| The heroes of our cause Your conscience is | I |
| What we come back to in the armistice | I |
Karl Shapiro
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