Edward Everett Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBC DEDE FAFA GHGH IBIB JKJK LALA MNMN OPOP QAQA RSTS FUFU VAVA WRWR AXAX YZYA A2GA2G FB2F| 'OUR FIRST CITIZEN' | A |
| - | |
| WINTER'S cold drift lies glistening o'er his breast | B |
| For him no spring shall bid the leaf unfold | C |
| What Love could speak by sudden grief oppressed | B |
| What swiftly summoned Memory tell is told | C |
| - | |
| Even as the bells in one consenting chime | D |
| Filled with their sweet vibrations all the air | E |
| So joined all voices in that mournful time | D |
| His genius wisdom virtues to declare | E |
| - | |
| What place is left for words of measured praise | F |
| Till calm eyed History with her iron pen | A |
| Grooves in the unchanging rock the final phrase | F |
| That shapes his image in the souls of men | A |
| - | |
| Yet while the echoes still repeat his name | G |
| While countless tongues his full orbed life rehearse | H |
| Love by his beating pulses taught will claim | G |
| The breath of song the tuneful throb of verse | H |
| - | |
| Verse that in ever changing ebb and flow | I |
| Moves like the laboring heart with rush and rest | B |
| Or swings in solemn cadence sad and slow | I |
| Like the tired heaving of a grief worn breast | B |
| - | |
| This was a mind so rounded so complete | J |
| No partial gift of Nature in excess | K |
| That like a single stream where many meet | J |
| Each separate talent counted something less | K |
| - | |
| A little hillock if it lonely stand | L |
| Holds o'er the fields an undisputed reign | A |
| While the broad summit of the table land | L |
| Seems with its belt of clouds a level plain | A |
| - | |
| Servant of all his powers that faithful slave | M |
| Unsleeping Memory strengthening with his toils | N |
| To every ruder task his shoulder gave | M |
| And loaded every day with golden spoils | N |
| - | |
| Order the law of Heaven was throned supreme | O |
| O'er action instinct impulse feeling thought | P |
| True as the dial's shadow to the beam | O |
| Each hour was equal to the charge it brought | P |
| - | |
| Too large his compass for the nicer skill | Q |
| That weighs the world of science grain by grain | A |
| All realms of knowledge owned the mastering will | Q |
| That claimed the franchise of its whole domain | A |
| - | |
| Earth air sea sky the elemental fire | R |
| Art history song what meanings lie in each | S |
| Found in his cunning hand a stringless lyre | T |
| And poured their mingling music through his speech | S |
| - | |
| Thence flowed those anthems of our festal days | F |
| Whose ravishing division held apart | U |
| The lips of listening throngs in sweet amaze | F |
| Moved in all breasts the selfsame human heart | U |
| - | |
| Subdued his accents as of one who tries | V |
| To press some care some haunting sadness down | A |
| His smile half shadow and to stranger eyes | V |
| The kingly forehead wore an iron crown | A |
| - | |
| He was not armed to wrestle with the storm | W |
| To fight for homely truth with vulgar power | R |
| Grace looked from every feature shaped his form | W |
| The rose of Academe the perfect flower | R |
| - | |
| Such was the stately scholar whom we knew | A |
| In those ill days of soul enslaving calm | X |
| Before the blast of Northern vengeance blew | A |
| Her snow wreathed pine against the Southern palm | X |
| - | |
| Ah God forgive us did we hold too cheap | Y |
| The heart we might have known but would not see | Z |
| And look to find the nation's friend asleep | Y |
| Through the dread hour of her Gethsemane | A |
| - | |
| That wrong is past we gave him up to Death | A2 |
| With all a hero's honors round his name | G |
| As martyrs coin their blood he coined his breath | A2 |
| And dimmed the scholar's in the patriot's fame | G |
| - | |
| So shall we blazon on the shaft we raise | F |
| Telling our grief our pride to unborn years | B2 |
| 'He who had lived the mark of all men's praise | F |
| Died with the tribute of a Nation's tears ' | - |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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