To The Boston Frigate, On Leaving Halifax For England,[1] October, 1804 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEEEEE EEEEFFEEGGHHIIEEJJEE EEKKEEEELLMMNNEEOPEE QQWith triumph this morning oh Boston I hail | A |
The stir of thy deck and the spread of thy sail | A |
For they tell me I soon shall be wafted in thee | B |
To the flourishing isle of the brave and the free | B |
And that chill Nova Scotia's unpromising strand | C |
Is the last I shall tread of American land | C |
Well peace to the land may her sons know at length | D |
That in high minded honor lies liberty's strength | D |
That though man be as free as the fetterless wind | E |
As the wantonest air that the north can unbind | E |
Yet if health do not temper and sweeten the blast | E |
If no harvest of mind ever sprung where it past | E |
Then unblest is such freedom and baleful its might | E |
Free only to ruin and strong but to blight | E |
- | |
Farewell to the few I have left with regret | E |
May they sometimes recall what I cannot forget | E |
The delight of those evenings too brief a delight | E |
When in converse and song we have stolen on the night | E |
When they've asked me the manners the mind or the mien | F |
Of some bard I had known or some chief I had seen | F |
Whose glory though distant they long had adored | E |
Whose name had oft hallowed the wine cup they poured | E |
And still as with sympathy humble but true | G |
I have told of each bright son of fame all I knew | G |
They have listened and sighed that the powerful stream | H |
Of America's empire should pass like a dream | H |
Without leaving one relic of genius to say | I |
How sublime was the tide which had vanished away | I |
Farewell to the few though we never may meet | E |
On this planet again it is soothing and sweet | E |
To think that whenever my song or my name | J |
Shall recur to their ear they'll recall me the same | J |
I have been to them now young unthoughtful and blest | E |
Ere hope had deceived me or sorrow deprest | E |
- | |
But Douglas while thus I recall to my mind | E |
The elect of the land we shall soon leave behind | E |
I can read in the weather wise glance of thine eye | K |
As it follows the rack flitting over the sky | K |
That the faint coming breeze would be fair for our flight | E |
And shall steal us away ere the falling of night | E |
Dear Douglas thou knowest with thee by my side | E |
With thy friendship to soothe me thy courage to guide | E |
There is not a bleak isle in those summerless seas | L |
Where the day comes in darkness or shines but to freeze | L |
Not a tract of the line not a barbarous shore | M |
That I could not with patience with pleasure explore | M |
Oh think then how gladly I follow thee now | N |
When Hope smooths the billowy path of our prow | N |
And each prosperous sigh of the west springing wind | E |
Takes me nearer the home where my heart is inshrined | E |
Where the smile of a father shall meet me again | O |
And the tears of a mother turn bliss into pain | P |
Where the kind voice of sisters shall steal to my heart | E |
And ask it in sighs how we ever could part | E |
- | |
But see the bent top sails are ready to swell | Q |
To the boat I am with thee Columbia farewell | Q |
Thomas Moore
(1)
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