The Rendition
I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call,I saw an earnest look beseech,And rather by that look than speechMy neighbor told me all.
And, as I thought of LibertyMarched handcuffed down that sworded street,The solid earth beneath my feetReeled fluid as the sea.
I felt a sense of bitter loss,--Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath,And loathing fear, as if my pathA serpent stretched across.
All love of home, all pride of place,All generous confidence and trust,Sank smothering in that deep disgustAnd anguish of disgrace.
Down on my native hills of June,And home's green quiet, hiding all,Fell sudden darkness like the fallOf midnight upon noon.
And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,Hoarse-shouting in the ear of GodThe blasphemy of wrong.
"O Mother, from thy memories proud,Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth,Lend this dead air a breeze of health,And smite with stars this cloud.
"Mother of Freedom, wise and brave,Rise awful in thy strength," I said;Ah me! I spake but to the dead;I stood upon her grave!
Words in this poem
- sworded a.
- Girded with a sword. [Cf. AS. geswurdod.]
- tearless a.
- Shedding no tears; free from tears; unfeeling.
- generous a.
- Of honorable birth or origin; highborn. [F. généreux, fr. L. generous of noble birth, noble, excellent, magnanimous, fr. genus birth, race: cf. It. generoso. See 2d Gender.]
- maniac a.
- Raving with madness; raging with disordered intellect; affected with mania; mad. [F. maniaque. See Mania.]
- commonwealth n.
- A state; a body politic consisting of a certain number of men, united, by compact or tacit agreement, under one form of government and system of laws. [Common + wealth well-being.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Rendition is in the public domain. This text is taken from Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform, Complete Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, Project Gutenberg ebook #9580; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Greenleaf Whittier, The Rendition, in Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform (1865), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9580, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whittier-anti-slavery/the-rendition.html, id L24891.
Form and metre
The Rendition is 32 lines in 8 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 7 of its 8 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 ABBA callA · beseechB · speechB · allA
- 2 -AA- liberty · streetA · feetA · sea
- 3 ABBA lossA · wrathB · pathB · acrossA
- 4 ABBA placeA · trustB · disgustB · disgraceA
- 5 ABBA juneA · allB · fallB · noonA
- 6 ABBA strongA · trodB · godB · wrongA
- 7 ABBA proudA · commonwealthB · healthB · cloudA
- 8 ABBA braveA · saidB · deadB · graveA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I saw an earnest look beseech, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| And rather by that look than speech | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| My neighbor told me all. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| And, as I thought of Liberty | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Marched handcuffed down that sworded street, | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| The solid earth beneath my feet | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Reeled fluid as the sea. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| I felt a sense of bitter loss,-- | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And loathing fear, as if my path | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| A serpent stretched across. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| All love of home, all pride of place, | 8 | ········ |
| All generous confidence and trust, | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘·· |
| Sank smothering in that deep disgust | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| And anguish of disgrace. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| Down on my native hills of June, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And home's green quiet, hiding all, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Fell sudden darkness like the fall | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Of midnight upon noon. | 6 | ·/···· |
| And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The blasphemy of wrong. | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| "O Mother, from thy memories proud, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Lend this dead air a breeze of health, | 8 | ········ |
| And smite with stars this cloud. | 6 | ······ |
| "Mother of Freedom, wise and brave, | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| Rise awful in thy strength," I said; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Ah me! I spake but to the dead; | 8 | ········ |
| I stood upon her grave! | 6 | ······ |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.