Analysis of The Moral Warfare

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



WHEN Freedom, on her natal day,
Within her war-rocked cradle lay,
An iron race around her stood,
Baptized her infant brow in blood;
And, through the storm which round her swept,
Their constant ward and watching kept.
Then, where our quiet herds repose,
The roar of baleful battle rose,
And brethren of a common tongue
To mortal strife as tigers sprung,
And every gift on Freedom's shrine
Was man for beast, and blood for wine!
Our fathers to their graves have gone;
Their strife is past, their triumph won;
But sterner trials wait the race
Which rises in their honored place;
A moral warfare with the crime
And folly of an evil time.
So let it be. In God's own might
We gird us for the coming fight,
And, strong in Him whose cause is ours
In conflict with unholy powers,
We grasp the weapons He has given, —
The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven.


Scheme AABCDDEEFFGGHIJJKKLLMMII
Poetic Form
Metre 11010101 01011101 11010101 01010101 01011101 11010101 111010101 01110101 01010101 11011101 010011101 11110111 101011111 11111101 11010101 11001101 0101101 01011101 11110111 11110101 010111110 010101010 110101110 010101110
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 836
Words 159
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 24
Lines Amount 24
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 662
Words per stanza (avg) 157
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

48 sec read
108

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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