The Soudanese Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBAABBACDECCD F CCGGCCGHFFHFH C ICCIICCICGCJGJ C F FKKFFKKFCGCCCG G C CFFCCFFCFLMNFM C L CKKCCKOCGPCPGC C K KCCKKCCKGQCQG C G RCCRRCCRJSKKJS K K DSSDDSSDCJCJJC K K CCCCCCCCTKTKTK K U VCCWWCCWSKFSKF K K XSSXXSSXCKCKKC K Y P SCCSSP| They wrong'd not us nor sought 'gainst us to wage | A |
| The bitter battle On their God they cried | B |
| For succour deeming justice to abide | B |
| In heaven if banish'd from earth's vicinage | A |
| And when they rose with a gall'd lion's rage | A |
| We on the captor's keeper's tamer's side | B |
| We with the alien tyranny allied | B |
| We bade them back to their Egyptian cage | A |
| Scarce knew they who we were A wind of blight | C |
| From the mysterious far north west we came | D |
| Our greatness now their veriest babes have learn'd | E |
| Where in wild desert homes by day by night | C |
| Thousands that weep their warriors unreturn'd | C |
| O England O my country curse thy name | D |
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| II | - |
| - | |
| Hasheen | F |
| - | |
| 'Of British arms another victory ' | - |
| Triumphant words through all the land's length sped | C |
| Triumphant words but being interpreted | C |
| Words of ill sound woful as words can be | G |
| Another carnage by the drear Red Sea | G |
| Another efflux of a sea more red | C |
| Another bruising of the hapless head | C |
| Of a wrong'd people yearning to be free | G |
| Another blot on her great name who stands | H |
| Confounded left intolerably alone | F |
| With the dilating spectre of her own | F |
| Dark sin uprisen from yonder spectral sands | H |
| Penitent more than to herself is known | F |
| England appall'd by her own crimson hands | H |
| - | |
| - | |
| III | - |
| - | |
| The English Dead | C |
| - | |
| Give honour to our heroes fall'n how ill | I |
| Soe'er the cause that bade them forth to die | C |
| Honour to him the untimely struck whom high | C |
| In place more high in hope 'twas fate's harsh will | I |
| With tedious pain unsplendidly to kill | I |
| Honour to him doom'd splendidly to die | C |
| Child of the city whose foster child am I | C |
| Who hotly leading up the ensanguin'd hill | I |
| His charging thousand fell without a word | C |
| Fell but shall fall not from our memory | G |
| Also for them let honour's voice be heard | C |
| Who nameless sleep while dull time covereth | J |
| With no illustrious shade of laurel tree | G |
| But with the poppy alone their deeds and death | J |
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| - | |
| IV | C |
| - | |
| Gordon | F |
| - | |
| Idle although our homage be and vain | F |
| Who loudly through the door of silence press | K |
| And vie in zeal to crown death's nakedness | K |
| Not therefore shall melodious lips refrain | F |
| Thy praises gentlest warrior without stain | F |
| Denied the happy garland of success | K |
| Foil'd by dark fate but glorious none the less | K |
| Greatest of losers on the lone peak slain | F |
| Of Alp like virtue Not to day and not | C |
| To morrow shall thy spirit's splendour be | G |
| Oblivion's victim but when God shall find | C |
| All human grandeur among men forgot | C |
| Then only shall the world grown old and blind | C |
| Cease in her dotage to remember Thee | G |
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| - | |
| V | G |
| - | |
| GORDON Concluded | C |
| - | |
| Arab Egyptian English by the sword | C |
| Cloven or pierced with spears or bullet mown | F |
| In equal fate they sleep their dust is grown | F |
| A portion of the fiery sands abhorred | C |
| And thou what hast thou hero for reward | C |
| Thou England's glory and her shame O'erthrown | F |
| Thou liest unburied or with grave unknown | F |
| As his to whom on Nebo's height the Lord | C |
| Showed all the land of Gilead unto Dan | F |
| Judah sea fringed Manasseh and Ephraim | L |
| And Jericho palmy to where Zoar lay | M |
| And in a valley of Moab buried him | N |
| Over against Beth Peor but no man | F |
| Knows of his sepulchre unto this day | M |
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| - | |
| VI | C |
| - | |
| The True Patriotism | L |
| - | |
| The ever lustrous name of patriot | C |
| To no man be denied because he saw | K |
| Where in his country's wholeness lay the flaw | K |
| Where on her whiteness the unseemly blot | C |
| England thy loyal sons condemn thee What | C |
| Shall we be meek who from thine own breasts draw | K |
| Our fierceness Not ev'n thou shalt overawe | O |
| Us thy proud children nowise basely got | C |
| Be this the measure of our loyalty | G |
| To feel thee noble and weep thy lapse the more | P |
| This truth by thy true servants is confess'd | C |
| Thy sins who love thee most do most deplore | P |
| Know thou thy faithful Best they honour thee | G |
| Who honour in thee only what is best | C |
| - | |
| - | |
| VII | C |
| - | |
| Restored Allegiance | K |
| - | |
| Dark is thy trespass deep be thy remorse | K |
| O England Fittingly thine own feet bleed | C |
| Submissive to the purblind guides that lead | C |
| Thy weary steps along this rugged course | K |
| Yet when I glance abroad and track the source | K |
| More selfish far of other nations' deed | C |
| And mark their tortuous craft their jealous greed | C |
| Their serpent wisdom or mere soulless force | K |
| Homeward returns my vagrant fealty | G |
| Crying 'O England shouldst thou one day fall | Q |
| Shatter'd in ruins by some Titan foe | C |
| Justice were thenceforth weaker throughout all | Q |
| The world and Truth less passionately free | G |
| And God the poorer for thine overthrow ' | - |
| - | |
| - | |
| VIII | C |
| - | |
| The Political Luminary | G |
| - | |
| A skilful leech so long as we were whole | R |
| Who scann'd the nation's every outward part | C |
| But ah misheard the beating of its heart | C |
| Sire of huge sorrows yet erect of soul | R |
| Swift rider with calamity for goal | R |
| Who overtasking his equestrian art | C |
| Unstall'd a steed full willing for the start | C |
| But wondrous hard to curb or to control | R |
| Sometimes we thought he led the people forth | J |
| Anon he seemed to follow where they flew | S |
| Lord of the golden tongue and smiting eyes | K |
| Great out of season and untimely wise | K |
| A man whose virtue genius grandeur worth | J |
| Wrought deadlier ill than ages can undo | S |
| - | |
| - | |
| IX | K |
| - | |
| Foreign Menace | K |
| - | |
| I marvel that this land whereof I claim | D |
| The glory of sonship for it was erewhile | S |
| A glory to be sprung of Britain's isle | S |
| Though now it well nigh more resembles shame | D |
| I marvel that this land with heart so tame | D |
| Can brook the northern insolence and guile | S |
| But most it angers me to think how vile | S |
| Art thou how base from whom the insult came | D |
| Unwieldly laggard many an age behind | C |
| Thy sister Powers in brain and conscience both | J |
| In recognition of man's widening mind | C |
| And flexile adaptation to its growth | J |
| Brute bulk that bearest on thy back half loth | J |
| One wretched man most pitied of mankind | C |
| - | |
| - | |
| X | K |
| - | |
| Home Rootedness | K |
| - | |
| I cannot boast myself cosmopolite | C |
| I own to 'insularity ' although | C |
| 'Tis fall'n from fashion as full well I know | C |
| For somehow being a plain and simple wight | C |
| I am skin deep a child of the new light | C |
| But chiefly am mere Englishman below | C |
| Of island fostering and can hate a foe | C |
| And trust my kin before the Muscovite | C |
| Whom shall I trust if not my kin And whom | T |
| Account so near in natural bonds as these | K |
| Born of my mother England's mighty womb | T |
| Nursed on my mother England's mighty knees | K |
| And lull'd as I was lull'd in glory and gloom | T |
| With cradle song of her protecting seas | K |
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| - | |
| XI | K |
| - | |
| Our Eastern Treasure | U |
| - | |
| In cobwebb'd corners dusty and dim I hear | V |
| A thin voice pipingly revived of late | C |
| Which saith our India is a cumbrous weight | C |
| An idle decoration bought too dear | W |
| The wiser world contemns not gorgeous gear | W |
| Just pride is no mean factor in a State | C |
| The sense of greatness keeps a nation great | C |
| And mighty they who mighty can appear | W |
| It may be that if hands of greed could steal | S |
| From England's grasp the envied orient prize | K |
| This tide of gold would flood her still as now | F |
| But were she the same England made to feel | S |
| A brightness gone from out those starry eyes | K |
| A splendour from that constellated brow | F |
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| - | |
| XII | K |
| - | |
| Reported Concessions | K |
| - | |
| So we must palter falter cringe and shrink | X |
| And when the bully threatens crouch or fly | S |
| There are who tell me with a shuddering eye | S |
| That war's red cup is Satan's chosen drink | X |
| Who shall gainsay them Verily I do think | X |
| War is as hateful almost and well nigh | S |
| As ghastly as this terrible Peace whereby | S |
| We halt for ever on the crater's brink | X |
| And feed the wind with phrases while we know | C |
| There gapes at hand the infernal precipice | K |
| O'er which a gossamer bridge of words we throw | C |
| Yet cannot choose but hear from the abyss | K |
| The sulphurous gloom's unfathomable hiss | K |
| And simmering lava's subterranean flow | C |
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| XIII | K |
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| Nightmare | Y |
| - | |
| Written during apparent imminence of war | P |
| - | |
| In a false dream I saw the Foe prevail | S |
| The war was ended the last smoke had rolled | C |
| Away and we erewhile the strong and bold | C |
| Stood broken humbled withered weak and pale | S |
| And moan'd 'Our greatness is become a tale | S |
| To tell our childr | P |
William Watson
(1)
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