For The Centennial Dinner Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB CCDD EEFF GGHH IIJJ KKLL MMNN DDO DDLL PPQQ RSTT U N HHVV| OF THE PROPRIETORS OF BOSTON PIER OR THE LONG WHARF | A |
| APRIL | B |
| - | |
| DEAR friends we are strangers we never before | C |
| Have suspected what love to each other we bore | C |
| But each of us all to his neighbor is dear | D |
| Whose heart has a throb for our time honored pier | D |
| - | |
| As I look on each brother proprietor's face | E |
| I could open my arms in a loving embrace | E |
| What wonder that feelings undreamed of so long | F |
| Should burst all at once in a blossom of song | F |
| - | |
| While I turn my fond glance on the monarch of piers | G |
| Whose throne has stood firm through his eightscore of years | G |
| My thought travels backward and reaches the day | H |
| When they drove the first pile on the edge of the bay | H |
| - | |
| - | |
| See The joiner the shipwright the smith from his forge | I |
| The redcoat who shoulders his gun for King George | I |
| The shopman the 'prentice the boys from the lane | J |
| The parson the doctor with gold headed cane | J |
| - | |
| Come trooping down King Street where now may be seen | K |
| The pulleys and ropes of a mighty machine | K |
| The weight rises slowly it drops with a thud | L |
| And to the great timber sinks deep in the mud | L |
| - | |
| They are gone the stout craftsmen that hammered the piles | M |
| And the square toed old boys in the three cornered tiles | M |
| The breeches the buckles have faded from view | N |
| And the parson's white wig and the ribbon tied queue | N |
| - | |
| The redcoats have vanished the last grenadier | D |
| Stepped into the boat from the end of our pier | D |
| They found that our hills were not easy to climb | O |
| And the order came 'Countermarch double quick time ' | - |
| - | |
| They are gone friend and foe anchored fast at the pier | D |
| Whence no vessel brings back its pale passengers here | D |
| But our wharf like a lily still floats on the flood | L |
| Its breast in the sunshine its roots in the mud | L |
| - | |
| Who who that has loved it so long and so well | P |
| The flower of his birthright would barter or sell | P |
| No pride of the bay while its ripples shall run | Q |
| You shall pass as an heirloom from father to son | Q |
| - | |
| Let me part with the acres my grandfather bought | R |
| With the bonds that my uncle's kind legacy brought | S |
| With my bank shares old 'Union ' whose ten per cent stock | T |
| Stands stiff through the storms as the Eddystone rock | T |
| - | |
| With my rights or my wrongs in the 'Erie ' alas | U |
| With my claims on the mournful and 'Mutual Mass ' | - |
| With my 'Phil Wil and Balt ' with my 'C B and Q ' | - |
| But I never no never will sell out of you | N |
| - | |
| We drink to thy past and thy future to day | H |
| Strong right arm of Boston stretched out o'er the bay | H |
| May the winds waft the wealth of all nations to thee | V |
| And thy dividends flow like the waves of the sea | V |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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