A Ballad Of The Boston Tea-party Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCDEDEFCFCFGCFCFHF IF FGFGFEFEJFJFKEKELCLC MLMLCGCGNGN FEFELCLCLLLL FEFEACOC PQPQRCRCSF SFAAAA TATAUCUCAAAARead at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society | A |
- | |
No never such a draught was poured | B |
Since Hebe served with nectar | C |
The bright Olympians and their Lord | B |
Her over kind protector | C |
Since Father Noah squeezed the grape | D |
And took to such behaving | E |
As would have shamed our grandsire ape | D |
Before the days of shaving | E |
No ne'er was mingled such a draught | F |
In palace hall or arbor | C |
As freemen brewed and tyrants quaffed | F |
That night in Boston Harbor | C |
The Western war cloud's crimson stained | F |
The Thames the Clyde the Shannon | G |
Full many a six foot grenadier | C |
The flattened grass had measured | F |
And many a mother many a year | C |
Her tearful memories treasured | F |
Fast spread the tempest's darkening pall | H |
The mighty realms were troubled | F |
The storm broke loose but first of all | I |
The Boston teapot bubbled | F |
- | |
An evening party only that | F |
No formal invitation | G |
No gold laced coat no stiff cravat | F |
No feast in contemplation | G |
No silk robed dames no fiddling band | F |
No flowers no songs no dancing | E |
A tribe of red men axe in hand | F |
Behold the guests advancing | E |
How fast the stragglers join the throng | J |
From stall and workshop gathered | F |
The lively barber skips along | J |
And leaves a chin half lathered | F |
The smith has flung his hammer down | K |
The horseshoe still is glowing | E |
The truant tapster at the Crown | K |
Has left a beer cask flowing | E |
The cooper's boys have dropped the adze | L |
And trot behind their master | C |
Up run the tarry ship yard lads | L |
The crowd is hurrying faster | C |
Out from the Millpond's purlieus gush | M |
The streams of white faced millers | L |
And down their slippery alleys rush | M |
The lusty young Fort Hillers | L |
The ropewalk lends its 'prentice crew | C |
The tories seize the omen | G |
'Ay boys you'll soon have work to do | C |
For England's rebel foemen | G |
'King Hancock ' Adams and their gang | N |
That fire the mob with treason | G |
When these we shoot and those we hang | N |
The town will come to reason ' | - |
- | |
On on to where the tea ships ride | F |
And now their ranks are forming | E |
A rush and up the Dartmouth's side | F |
The Mohawk band is swarming | E |
See the fierce natives What a glimpse | L |
Of paint and fur and feather | C |
As all at once the full grown imps | L |
Light on the deck together | C |
A scarf the pigtail's secret keeps | L |
A blanket hides the breeches | L |
And out the cursed cargo leaps | L |
And overboard it pitches | L |
- | |
O woman at the evening board | F |
So gracious sweet and purring | E |
So happy while the tea is poured | F |
So blest while spoons are stirring | E |
What martyr can compare with thee | A |
The mother wife or daughter | C |
That night instead of best Bohea | O |
Condemned to milk and water | C |
- | |
Ah little dreams the quiet dame | P |
Who plies with' rock and spindle | Q |
The patient flax how great a flame | P |
Yon little spark shall kindle | Q |
The lurid morning shall reveal | R |
A fire no king can smother | C |
Where British flint and Boston steel | R |
Have clashed against each other | C |
Old charters shrivel in its track | S |
His Worship's bench has crumbled | F |
- | |
It climbs and clasps the union jack | S |
Its blazoned pomp is humbled | F |
The flags go down on land and sea | A |
Like corn before the reapers | A |
So burned the fire that brewed the tea | A |
That Boston served her keepers | A |
- | |
The waves that wrought a century's wreck | T |
Have rolled o'er whig and tory | A |
The Mohawks on the Dartmouth's deck | T |
Still live in song and story | A |
The waters in the rebel bay | U |
Have kept the tea leaf savor | C |
Our old North Enders in their spray | U |
Still taste a Hyson flavor | C |
And Freedom's teacup still o'erflows | A |
With ever fresh libations | A |
To cheat of slumber all her foes | A |
And cheer the wakening nations | A |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about A Ballad Of The Boston Tea-party poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Best Poems of Oliver Wendell Holmes