The Pilgrim's Vision Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCBDB EFAFFFGF HI AIJIE FEGEEEGE FFAFKFLF FMEMNMOM APQPEPAP KRGRARFR FFSFTFFF FAUAAAAA FVAVAVWV EEXEXEFE EAPAYAZ FA2AOAB2EA2 AEFEC2ED2E WFEFFFAF AFE2FEFFFIN the hour of twilight shadows | A |
The Pilgrim sire looked out | B |
He thought of the 'bloudy Salvages' | A |
That lurked all round about | B |
Of Wituwamet's pictured knife | C |
And Pecksuot's whooping shout | B |
For the baby's limbs were feeble | D |
Though his father's arms were stout | B |
- | |
His home was a freezing cabin | E |
Too bare for the hungry rat | F |
Its roof was thatched with ragged grass | A |
And bald enough of that | F |
The hole that served for casement | F |
Was glazed with an ancient hat | F |
And the ice was gently thawing | G |
From the log whereon he sat | F |
- | |
Along the dreary landscape | H |
His eyes went to and fro | I |
- | |
The trees all clad in icicles | A |
The streams that did not flow | I |
A sudden thought flashed o'er him | J |
A dream of long ago | I |
He smote his leathern jerkin | E |
And murmured 'Even so ' | - |
- | |
'Come hither God be Glorified | F |
And sit upon my knee | E |
Behold the dream unfolding | G |
Whereof I spake to thee | E |
By the winter's hearth in Leyden | E |
And on the stormy sea | E |
True is the dream's beginning | G |
So may its ending be | E |
- | |
'I saw in the naked forest | F |
Our scattered remnant cast | F |
A screen of shivering branches | A |
Between them and the blast | F |
The snow was falling round them | K |
The dying fell as fast | F |
I looked to see them perish | L |
When lo the vision passed | F |
- | |
'Again mine eyes were opened | F |
The feeble had waxed strong | M |
The babes had grown to sturdy men | E |
The remnant was a throng | M |
By shadowed lake and winding stream | N |
And all the shores along | M |
The howling demons quaked to hear | O |
The Christian's godly song | M |
- | |
'They slept the village fathers | A |
By river lake and shore | P |
When far adown the steep of Time | Q |
The vision rose once more | P |
I saw along the winter snow | E |
A spectral column pour | P |
And high above their broken ranks | A |
A tattered flag they bore | P |
- | |
'Their Leader rode before them | K |
Of bearing calm and high | R |
The light of Heaven's own kindling | G |
Throned in his awful eye | R |
These were a Nation's champions | A |
Her dread appeal to try | R |
God for the right I faltered | F |
And lo the train passed by | R |
- | |
'Once more the strife is ended | F |
The solemn issue tried | F |
The Lord of Hosts his mighty arm | S |
Has helped our Israel's side | F |
Gray stone and grassy hillock | T |
Tell where our martyrs died | F |
But peaceful smiles the harvest | F |
And stainless flows the tide | F |
- | |
'A crash as when some swollen cloud | F |
Cracks o'er the tangled trees | A |
With side to side and spar to spar | U |
Whose smoking decks are these | A |
I know Saint George's blood red cross | A |
Thou Mistress of the Seas | A |
But what is she whose streaming bars | A |
Roll out before the breeze | A |
- | |
'Ah well her iron ribs are knit | F |
Whose thunders strive to quell | V |
The bellowing throats the blazing lips | A |
That pealed the Armada's knell | V |
The mist was cleared a wreath of stars | A |
Rose o'er the crimsoned swell | V |
And wavering from its haughty peak | W |
The cross of England fell | V |
- | |
'O trembling Faith though dark the morn | E |
A heavenly torch is thine | E |
While feebler races melt away | X |
And paler orbs decline | E |
Still shall the fiery pillar's ray | X |
Along thy pathway shine | E |
To light the chosen tribe that sought | F |
This Western Palestine | E |
- | |
'I see the living tide roll on | E |
It crowns with flaming towers | A |
The icy capes of Labrador | P |
The Spaniard's 'land of flowers' | A |
It streams beyond the splintered ridge | Y |
That parts the northern showers | A |
From eastern rock to sunset wave | Z |
The Continent is ours ' | - |
- | |
He ceased the grim old soldier saint | F |
Then softly bent to cheer | A2 |
The Pilgrim child whose wasting face | A |
Was meekly turned to hear | O |
And drew his toil worn sleeve across | A |
To brush the manly tear | B2 |
From cheeks that never changed in woe | E |
And never blanched in fear | A2 |
- | |
The weary Pilgrim slumbers | A |
His resting place unknown | E |
His hands were crossed his lips were closed | F |
The dust was o'er him strown | E |
The drifting soil the mouldering leaf | C2 |
Along the sod were blown | E |
His mound has melted into earth | D2 |
His memory lives alone | E |
- | |
So let it live unfading | W |
The memory of the dead | F |
Long as the pale anemone | E |
Springs where their tears were shed | F |
Or raining in the summer's wind | F |
In flakes of burning red | F |
The wild rose sprinkles with its leaves | A |
The turf where once they bled | F |
- | |
Yea when the frowning bulwarks | A |
That guard this holy strand | F |
Have sunk beneath the trampling surge | E2 |
In beds of sparkling sand | F |
While in the waste of ocean | E |
One hoary rock shall stand | F |
Be this its latest legend | F |
HERE WAS THE PILGRIM'S LAND | F |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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