The Deportation Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDBEDCCB AFGHIHGFEJKJBKLMML ENOPEOQPQLPQPNPLLRPS RS APTTPUVUVELLLLB| I | A |
| In vain in vain in vain | B |
| Conqueror you are conquered though you grind | C |
| These bodies heel on neck and though you twist | D |
| Out of them the exquisite last wrench of pain | B |
| They rise they rise again | E |
| Rise quivering and eternally resist | D |
| All cunning that all cruelty can find | C |
| To mock the heart and lacerate the mind | C |
| In vain in vain | B |
| - | |
| - | |
| II | A |
| The train stands packed for exile truck on truck | F |
| Men thronged like oxen pressed against each other | G |
| With worse than anger in their dangerous eyes | H |
| Look on their drivers armed and helmeted | I |
| Then forget all in sudden stormy cries | H |
| As past the bayonets sister wife and mother | G |
| Strain up to them clutch fingers tight are struck | F |
| And beaten back but struggle and press again | E |
| Catch desolated kisses fight for breath | J |
| To sob their widowed hearts out in a word | K |
| Their man shall hear reckless of wound or death | J |
| So they come nigh him a farewell insane | B |
| A passion as if the earth that bore them heard | K |
| And in her bones groaned And white children held | L |
| On shoulders where the torn dress hangs in strips | M |
| Cry Father and mute answers wring the lips | M |
| Of the exiles in their torture still unquelled | L |
| - | |
| A whistle screams The guards drive shout beat Then | E |
| An inspiration like an ecstasy | N |
| Seizes these women and they rush to throw | O |
| Their sobbing bodies prone upon the tracks | P |
| Before the panting engine If their men | E |
| Into that night of slavery must go | O |
| They'll be with death before them Prostrate there | Q |
| Tear blinded with tense arms and heaving backs | P |
| Young wife and child and mother of grey hair | Q |
| Clutch the rails anguished and athirst to die | L |
| While over them the towering engine throbs | P |
| Blind ignorant deaf and ready But you spare | Q |
| Such easiness of end you who did this | P |
| Which the sun looked on and which History | N |
| Shall see for ever Though they cling with sobs | P |
| To their own earth frenzied and bleeding swift | L |
| They are harried up the bayonets prise and lift | L |
| And tear away their hands' despairing grasp | R |
| They are tossed on either side at the engine's hiss | P |
| The wheels begin that road which curses pave | S |
| Between those piteous heaps that cry and gasp | R |
| Helpless and cheated even of their grave | S |
| - | |
| - | |
| III | A |
| But something lives and burns | P |
| More perilous to assail | T |
| Than flesh of bodies frail | T |
| It waits and it returns | P |
| And when in the night you dream | U |
| Of the day that you did this thing | V |
| When you see those eyes and the bayonets' gleam | U |
| And the shrieks to your very heart's blood ring | V |
| As you do your deed in your dream again | E |
| The soul of the race that you racked to do | L |
| Your Lord's command that you thought to have cowed | L |
| Shall sharpen the bitterness thrice for you | L |
| As it rises before you crying aloud | L |
| You did it in vain in vain | B |
Robert Laurence Binyon
(1)
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About The Deportation
The Deportation is a poem by Robert Laurence Binyon. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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