The Death Of Slavery Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBCDEFDFDBB BGGBHHBCBCII BBBBBBBBBBJJ EBBEKKLBLBJJ MBBMLLBBBBBB NOONBBBBBBPP FBBFEEJBJBQQO THOU great Wrong that through the slow paced years | A |
Didst hold thy millions fettered and didst wield | B |
The scourge that drove the laborer to the field | B |
And turn a stony gaze on human tears | C |
Thy cruel reign is o er | D |
Thy bondmen crouch no more | E |
In terror at the menace of thine eye | F |
For He who marks the bounds of guilty power | D |
Long suffering hath heard the captive s cry | F |
And touched his shackles at the appointed hour | D |
And lo they fall and he whose limbs they galled | B |
Stands in his native manhood disenthralled | B |
- | |
A shout of joy from the redeemed is sent | B |
Ten thousand hamlets swell the hymn of thanks | G |
Our rivers roll exulting and their banks | G |
Send up hosannas to the firmament | B |
Fields where the bondman s toil | H |
No more shall trench the soil | H |
Seem now to bask in a serener day | B |
The meadow birds sing sweeter and the airs | C |
Of heaven with more caressing softness play | B |
Welcoming man to liberty like theirs | C |
A glory clothes the land from sea to sea | I |
For the great land and all its coasts are free | I |
- | |
Within that land wert thou enthroned of late | B |
And they by whom the nation s laws were made | B |
And they who filled its judgment seats obeyed | B |
Thy mandate rigid as the will of Fate | B |
Fierce men at thy right hand | B |
With gesture of command | B |
Gave forth the word that none might dare gainsay | B |
And grave and reverend ones who loved thee not | B |
Shrank from thy presence and in blank dismay | B |
Choked down unuttered the rebellious thought | B |
While meaner cowards mingling with thy train | J |
Proved from the book of God thy right to reign | J |
- | |
Great as thou wert and feared from shore to shore | E |
The wrath of Heaven o ertook thee in thy pride | B |
Thou sitt st a ghastly shadow by thy side | B |
Thy once strong arms hang nerveless evermore | E |
And they who quailed but now | K |
Before thy lowering brow | K |
Devote thy memory to scorn and shame | L |
And scoff at the pale powerless thing thou art | B |
And they who ruled in thine imperial name | L |
Subdued and standing sullenly apart | B |
Scowl at the hands that overthrew thy reign | J |
And shattered at a blow the prisoner s chain | J |
- | |
Well was thy doom deserved thou didst not spare | M |
Life s tenderest ties but cruelly didst part | B |
Husband and wife and from the mother s heart | B |
Didst wrest her children deaf to shriek and prayer | M |
Thy inner lair became | L |
The haunt of guilty shame | L |
Thy lash dropped blood the murderer at thy side | B |
Showed his red hands nor feared the vengeance due | B |
Thou didst sow earth with crimes and far and wide | B |
A harvest of uncounted miseries grew | B |
Until the measure of thy sins at last | B |
Was full and then the avenging bolt was cast | B |
- | |
Go now accursed of God and take thy place | N |
With hateful memories of the elder time | O |
With many a wasting plague and nameless crime | O |
And bloody war that thinned the human race | N |
With the Black Death whose way | B |
Through wailing cities lay | B |
Worship of Moloch tyrannies that built | B |
The Pyramids and cruel creeds that taught | B |
To avenge a fancied guilt by deeper guilt | B |
Death at the stake to those that held them not | B |
Lo the foul phantoms silent in the gloom | P |
Of the flown ages part to yield thee room | P |
- | |
I see the better years that hasten by | F |
Carry thee back into that shadowy past | B |
Where in the dusty spaces void and vast | B |
The graves of those whom thou hast murdered lie | F |
The slave pen through whose door | E |
Thy victims pass no more | E |
Is there and there shall the grim block remain | J |
At which the slave was sold while at thy feet | B |
Scourges and engines of restraint and pain | J |
Moulder and rust by thine eternal seat | B |
There mid the symbols that proclaim thy crimes | Q |
Dwell thou a warning to the coming times | Q |
William Cullen Bryant
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