Earth Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPDQ RSTUVWXYZPA2OAB2C2D2 E2OF2G2H2I2 J2JK2L2I2I2M2I2SN2I2 O2KI2P2Q2R2S2T2I2N2I 2I2U2V2W2I2I2 I2WI2NKX2KKKKKKY2Z2I 2KI2Z2 JI2ZI2A3I2I2X2C2KM2F 2B3KC3A midnight black with clouds is in the sky | A |
I seem to feel upon my limbs the weight | B |
Of its vast brooding shadow All in vain | C |
Turns the tired eye in search of form no star | D |
Pierces the pitchy veil no ruddy blaze | E |
From dwellings lighted by the cheerful hearth | F |
Tinges the flowering summits of the grass | G |
No sound of life is heard no village hum | H |
Nor measured tramp of footstep in the path | I |
Nor rush of wing while on the breast of Earth | J |
I lie and listen to her mighty voice | K |
A voice of many tones sent up from streams | L |
That wander through the gloom from woods unseen | M |
Swayed by the sweeping of the tides of air | N |
From rocky chasms where darkness dwells all day | O |
And hollows of the great invisible hills | P |
And sands that edge the ocean stretching far | D |
Into the night a melancholy sound | Q |
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O Earth dost thou too sorrow for the past | R |
Like man thy offspring Do I hear thee mourn | S |
Thy childhood's unreturning hours thy springs | T |
Gone with their genial airs and melodies | U |
The gentle generations of thy flowers | V |
And thy majestic groves of olden time | W |
Perished with all their dwellers Dost thou wail | X |
For that fair age of which the poets tell | Y |
Ere the rude winds grew keen with frost or fire | Z |
Fell with the rains or spouted from the hills | P |
To blast thy greenness while the virgin night | A2 |
Was guiltless and salubrious as the day | O |
Or haply dost thou grieve for those that die | A |
For living things that trod thy paths awhile | B2 |
The love of thee and heaven and now they sleep | C2 |
Mixed with the shapeless dust on which thy herds | D2 |
Trample and graze I too must grieve with thee | E2 |
O'er loved ones lost Their graves are far away | O |
Upon thy mountains yet while I recline | F2 |
Alone in darkness on thy naked soil | G2 |
The mighty nourisher and burial place | H2 |
Of man I feel that I embrace their dust | I2 |
- | |
Ha how the murmur deepens I perceive | J2 |
And tremble at its dreadful import Earth | J |
Uplifts a general cry for guilt and wrong | K2 |
And heaven is listening The forgotten graves | L2 |
Of the heart broken utter forth their plaint | I2 |
The dust of her who loved and was betrayed | I2 |
And him who died neglected in his age | M2 |
The sepulchres of those who for mankind | I2 |
Laboured and earned the recompense of scorn | S |
Ashes of martyrs for the truth and bones | N2 |
Of those who in the strife for liberty | I2 |
Were beaten down their corses given to dogs | O2 |
Their names to infamy all find a voice | K |
The nook in which the captive overtoiled | I2 |
Lay down to rest at last and that which holds | P2 |
Childhood's sweet blossoms crushed by cruel hands | Q2 |
Send up a plaintive sound From battle fields | R2 |
Where heroes madly drave and dashed their hosts | S2 |
Against each other rises up a noise | T2 |
As if the armed multitudes of dead | I2 |
Stirred in their heavy slumber Mournful tones | N2 |
Come from the green abysses of the sea | I2 |
story of the crimes the guilty sought | I2 |
To hide beneath its waves The glens the groves | U2 |
Paths in the thicket pools of running brook | V2 |
And banks and depths of lake and streets and lanes | W2 |
Of cities now that living sounds are hushed | I2 |
Murmur of guilty force and treachery | I2 |
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Here where I rest the vales of Italy | I2 |
Are round me populous from early time | W |
And field of the tremendous warfare waged | I2 |
'Twixt good and evil Who alas shall dare | N |
Interpret to man's ear the mingled voice | K |
That comes from her old dungeons yawning now | X2 |
To the black air her amphitheatres | K |
Where the dew gathers on the mouldering stones | K |
And fanes of banished gods and open tombs | K |
And roofless palaces and streets and hearths | K |
Of cities dug from their volcanic graves | K |
I hear a sound of many languages | K |
The utterance of nations now no more | Y2 |
Driven out by mightier as the days of heaven | Z2 |
Chase one another from the sky The blood | I2 |
Of freemen shed by freemen till strange lords | K |
Came in the hour of weakness and made fast | I2 |
The yoke that yet is worn cries out to Heaven | Z2 |
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What then shall cleanse thy bosom gentle Earth | J |
From all its painful memories of guilt | I2 |
The whelming flood or the renewing fire | Z |
Or the slow change of time that so at last | I2 |
The horrid tale of perjury and strife | A3 |
Murder and spoil which men call history | I2 |
May seem a fable like the inventions told | I2 |
By poets of the gods of Greece O thou | X2 |
Who sittest far beyond the Atlantic deep | C2 |
Among the sources of thy glorious streams | K |
My native Land of Groves a newer page | M2 |
In the great record of the world is thine | F2 |
Shall it be fairer Fear and friendly hope | B3 |
And envy watch the issue while the lines | K |
By which thou shalt be judged are written down | C3 |
William Cullen Bryant
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