After The Fire Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD EE FFGGEEHH IJKKLLGM NNLLOOPP QQRRPPPP RRCSAAQQ| WHILE far along the eastern sky | A |
| I saw the flags of Havoc fly | A |
| As if his forces would assault | B |
| The sovereign of the starry vault | B |
| And hurl Him back the burning rain | C |
| That seared the cities of the plain | C |
| I read as on a crimson page | D |
| The words of Israel's sceptred sage | D |
| - | |
| For riches make them wings and they | E |
| Do as an eagle fly away | E |
| - | |
| O vision of that sleepless night | F |
| What hue shall paint the mocking light | F |
| That burned and stained the orient skies | G |
| Where peaceful morning loves to rise | G |
| As if the sun had lost his way | E |
| And dawned to make a second day | E |
| Above how red with fiery glow | H |
| How dark to those it woke below | H |
| - | |
| On roof and wall on dome and spire | I |
| Flashed the false jewels of the fire | J |
| Girt with her belt of glittering panes | K |
| And crowned with starry gleaming vanes | K |
| Our northern queen in glory shone | L |
| With new born splendors not her own | L |
| And stood transfigured in our eyes | G |
| A victim decked for sacrifice | M |
| - | |
| The cloud still hovers overhead | N |
| And still the midnight sky is red | N |
| As the lost wanderer strays alone | L |
| To seek the place he called his own | L |
| His devious footprints sadly tell | O |
| How changed the pathways known so well | O |
| The scene how new The tale how old | P |
| Ere yet the ashes have grown cold | P |
| - | |
| Again I read the words that came | Q |
| Writ in the rubric of the flame | Q |
| Howe'r we trust to mortal things | R |
| Each hath its pair of folded wings | R |
| Though long their terrors rest unspread | P |
| Their fatal plumes are never shed | P |
| At last at last they spread in flight | P |
| And blot the day and blast then night | P |
| - | |
| Hope only Hope of all that clings | R |
| Around us never spreads her wings | R |
| Love though he break his earthly chain | C |
| Still whispers he will come again | S |
| But Faith that soars to seek the sky | A |
| Shall teach our half fledged souls to fly | A |
| And find beyond the smoke and flame | Q |
| The cloudless azure whence they came | Q |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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