The Ploughman Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB CCDD EEFFGGHHIIJJKKHH HHLLMMNN OOCCPPQQIIHHJJ RRHHHHNNSSDDSSEE| ANNIVERSARY OF THE BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY | A |
| OCTOBER | B |
| - | |
| CLEAR the brown path to meet his coulter's gleam | C |
| Lo on he comes behind his smoking team | C |
| With toil's bright dew drops on his sunburnt brow | D |
| The lord of earth the hero of the plough | D |
| - | |
| First in the field before the reddening sun | E |
| Last in the shadows when the day is done | E |
| Line after line along the bursting sod | F |
| Marks the broad acres where his feet have trod | F |
| Still where he treads the stubborn clods divide | G |
| The smooth fresh furrow opens deep and wide | G |
| Matted and dense the tangled turf upheaves | H |
| Mellow and dark the ridgy cornfield cleaves | H |
| Up the steep hillside where the laboring train | I |
| Slants the long track that scores the level plain | I |
| Through the moist valley clogged with oozing clay | J |
| The patient convoy breaks its destined way | J |
| At every turn the loosening chains resound | K |
| The swinging ploughshare circles glistening round | K |
| Till the wide field one billowy waste appears | H |
| And wearied hands unbind the panting steers | H |
| - | |
| These are the hands whose sturdy labor brings | H |
| The peasant's food the golden pomp of kings | H |
| This is the page whose letters shall be seen | L |
| Changed by the sun to words of living green | L |
| This is the scholar whose immortal pen | M |
| Spells the first lesson hunger taught to men | M |
| These are the lines which heaven commanded Toil | N |
| Shows on his deed the charter of the soil | N |
| - | |
| O gracious Mother whose benignant breast | O |
| Wakes us to life and lulls us all to rest | O |
| How thy sweet features kind to every clime | C |
| Mock with their smile the wrinkled front of time | C |
| We stain thy flowers they blossom o'er the dead | P |
| We rend thy bosom and it gives us bread | P |
| O'er the red field that trampling strife has torn | Q |
| Waves the green plumage of thy tasselled corn | Q |
| Our maddening conflicts sear thy fairest plain | I |
| Still thy soft answer is the growing grain | I |
| Yet O our Mother while uncounted charms | H |
| Steal round our hearts in thine embracing arms | H |
| Let not our virtues in thy love decay | J |
| And thy fond sweetness waste our strength away | J |
| - | |
| No by these hills whose banners now displayed | R |
| In blazing cohorts Autumn has arrayed | R |
| By yon twin summits on whose splintery crests | H |
| The tossing hemlocks hold the eagles' nests | H |
| By these fair plains the mountain circle screens | H |
| And feeds with streamlets from its dark ravines | H |
| True to their home these faithful arms shall toil | N |
| To crown with peace their own untainted soil | N |
| And true to God to freedom to mankind | S |
| If her chained bandogs Faction shall unbind | S |
| These stately forms that bending even now | D |
| Bowed their strong manhood to the humble plough | D |
| Shall rise erect the guardians of the land | S |
| The same stern iron in the same right hand | S |
| Till o'er their hills the shouts of triumph run | E |
| The sword has rescued what the ploughshare won | E |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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