Analysis of Freedom In Brazil

John Greenleaf Whittier 1807 (Haverhill) – 1892 (Hampton Falls)



WITH clearer light, Cross of the South, shine forth
In blue Brazilian skies;
And thou, O river, cleaving half the earth
From sunset to sunrise,
From the great mountains to the Atlantic waves
Thy joy's long anthem pour.
Yet a few years (God make them less!) and slaves
Shall shame thy pride no more,
No fettereel feet thy shaded margins press;
But all men shall walk free
Where thou, the high-priest of the wilderness,
Hast wedded sea to sea.
And thou, great-hearted ruler, through whose mouth
The word of God is said,
Once more, 'Let there be light!' — Son of the South,
Lift up thy honored head,
Wear unashamed a crown by thy desert
More than by birth thy own,
Careless of watch and ward; thou art begirt
By grateful hearts alone.
The moaned wall and battle-ship may fail,
But safe shall justice prove;
Stronger than greaves of brass or iron mail
The panoply of love.
Crowned doubly by man's blessing and God's grace,
Thy future is secure;
Who frees a people makes his statue's place
In Time's Valhalla sure.
Lo! from his Neva's banks the Scythian Czar
Stretches to thee his hand,
Who, with the pencil of the Northern star,
Wrote freedom on his land.
And he whose grave is holy by our calm
And prairied Sangamon,
From his gaunt hand shall drop the martyr's palm
To greet thee with 'Well done!'
And thou, O Earth, with smiles thy face make sweet,
And let thy wail be stilled,
To hear the Muse of prophecy repeat
Her promise half fulfilled.
The Voice that spake at Nazareth speaks still,
No sound thereof hath died;
Alike thy hope and Heaven's eternal will
Shall yet be satisfied.
The years are slow, the vision tarrieth long,
And far the end may be;
But, one by one, the fiends of ancient wrong
Go out and leave thee free.


Scheme ABCBDEDEFGHGIJIJKLJLMNMOPQPQRSRSTLTUVWVWXYXYZGZG
Poetic Form
Metre 1101110111 010101 011101101 1111 10110100101 111101 1011111101 111111 111110101 111111 1101110100 110111 0111010111 011111 1111111101 111101 101011110 111111 101101111 110101 011010111 111101 1011111101 010011 1101110011 110101 110101111 01101 1111101001 101111 1101010101 110111 01111101101 011 111111011 111111 0111111111 011111 1101110001 010101 0111110011 11111 01110100101 11110 011101011 010111 1111011101 110111
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,685
Words 319
Sentences 14
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 48
Lines Amount 48
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 1,341
Words per stanza (avg) 314
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:37 min read
126

John Greenleaf Whittier

John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet and ardent advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. more…

All John Greenleaf Whittier poems | John Greenleaf Whittier Books

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