The Sack Of Baltimore Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDE FFGGHHEE IIJJKKEE LLMMNNEE OOPPMMEE MMAAMEEE MMPPEEEE| The summer sun is falling soft on Carbery's hundred isles | A |
| The summer sun is gleaming still through Gabriel's rough defiles | A |
| Old Innisherkin's crumbled fane looks like a moulting bird | B |
| And in a calm and sleepy swell the ocean tide is heard | B |
| The hookers lie upon the beach the children cease their play | C |
| The gossips leave the little inn the households kneel to pray | C |
| And full of love and peace and rest its daily labor o'er | D |
| Upon that cosy creek there lay the town of Baltimore | E |
| - | |
| A deeper rest a starry trance has come with midnight there | F |
| No sound except that throbbing wave in earth or sea or air | F |
| The massive capes and ruin'd towers seem conscious of the calm | G |
| The fibrous sod and stunted trees are breathing heavy balm | G |
| So still the night these two long barques round Dunashad that glide | H |
| Must trust their oars methinks not few against the ebbing tide | H |
| Oh some sweet mission of true love must urge them to the shore | E |
| They bring some lover to his bride who sighs in Baltimore | E |
| - | |
| All all asleep within each roof along that rocky street | I |
| And these must be the lover's friends with gently gliding feet | I |
| A stifled gasp a dreamy noise The roof is in a flame | J |
| From out their beds and to their doors rush maid and sire and dame | J |
| And meet upon the threshold stone the gleaming sabre's fall | K |
| And o'er each black and bearded face the white or crimson shawl | K |
| The yell of Allah breaks above the prayer and shriek and roar | E |
| O blessed God the Algerine is lord of Baltimore | E |
| - | |
| Then flung the youth his naked hand against the shearing sword | L |
| Then sprung the mother on the brand with which her son was gor'd | L |
| Then sunk the grandsire on the floor his grand babes clutching wild | M |
| Then fled the maiden moaning faint and nestled with the child | M |
| But see yon pirate strangled lies and crush'd with splashing heel | N |
| While o'er him in an Irish hand there sweeps his Syrian steel | N |
| Though virtue sink and courage fail and misers yield their store | E |
| There 's one hearth well avenged in the sack of Baltimore | E |
| - | |
| Midsummer morn in woodland nigh the birds begin to sing | O |
| They see not now the milking maids deserted is the spring | O |
| Midsummer day this gallant rides from distant Bandon's town | P |
| These hookers cross'd from stormy Skull that skiff from Affadown | P |
| They only found the smoking walls with neighbors' blood besprent | M |
| And on the strewed and trampled beach awhile they wildly went | M |
| Then dash'd to sea and pass'd Cape Clear and saw five leagues before | E |
| The pirate galley vanishing that ravaged Baltimore | E |
| - | |
| Oh some must tug the galley's oar and some must tend the steed | M |
| This boy will bear a Scheik's chibouk and that a Bey's jerreed | M |
| Oh some are for the arsenals by beauteous Dardanelles | A |
| And some are in the caravan to Mecca's sandy dells | A |
| The maid that Bandon gallant sought is chosen for the Dey | M |
| She 's safe she's dead she stabb'd him in the midst of his Serai | E |
| And when to die a death of fire that noble maid they bore | E |
| She only smiled O'Driscoll's child she thought of Baltimore | E |
| - | |
| 'T is two long years since sunk the town beneath that bloody band | M |
| And all around its trampled hearths a larger concourse stand | M |
| Where high upon a gallows tree a yelling wretch is seen | P |
| 'T is Hackett of Dungarvan he who steer'd the Algerine | P |
| He fell amid a sullen shout with scarce a passing prayer | E |
| For he had slain the kith and kin of many a hundred there | E |
| Some mutter'd of MacMurchadh who brought the Norman o'er | E |
| Some curs'd him with Iscariot that day in Baltimore | E |
Thomas Osborne Davis
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Write your comment about The Sack Of Baltimore poem by Thomas Osborne Davis
[email protected]: A beautiful and historic poem.My late father from Baltimore used recite this poem to me as a child,and most of my childhood holidays were spent there in my father’s old home,,then hie brother’s.my uncle.My great grandmother was an O’DRISCOLL Thank you.
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