The Death Of Slavery Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBCDEFDFDBB BGGBHHBCBCII BBBBBBBBBBJJ EBBEKKLBLBJJ MBBMLLBBBBBB NOONBBBBBBPP FBBFEEJBJBQQ| O 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
(1)
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