Barbara Frietchie

I wrote this poem for school, redoing the original "Barbara Frietchie" by John Greenleaf Whittier. It's a true story, I believe. I wanted to post this poem because I'm rather proud of it but there are two parts in this poem that I stole from Whittier's original I'd like to redo them in my own words, but I can't think anything as good as the ones I stole, so if you guys could think of anything, I'm open for suggestions. (I'll tell you the lines I stole after you've read the poem) Enjoy!


People closed and locked their doors,
The street was bare and empty.

Faces watched through darkened windows-
The Rebel troops were coming.

No one dared protest, nor raise the Yankee flag,
None but Barbara Frietchie dared make the Rebels mad.

Out her attic window
She stuck on a hard oak rod,

A symbol of honor and freedom,
And before Lee and before God

She let that flag a-fly
As the Rebel troops marched in.

It flew 'till they came so close
You could hear the awful din

Of Rebel soldiers and of horses-
General Lee had marched in.

When Jackson set his eyes upon the Yankee flag
Away up in yonder window,

He motioned toward a lad
Riding proudly at his elbow.

The lad lifted up his rifle,
And taking careful aim,

Shot up at yonder window
And brought the flag down again.

But brave Barbara Frietchie,
Her heart loyal to the end,

Snatched up the Yankee flag
And brought it out again.

She waved it out the attic window,
Her grave face hard and red,

"Shoot if you must this old gray head,
But spare your country's flag," she said. *

Jackson's eyes clouded with respect,
His head bowed softly in shame,

I would not mind at all, thought he,
To know this brave patriot's name.

"Who touches a hair of yon gray head,
Dies like a dog! March on!" he said. *

And so they left the gray head alone,
They did not touch the flag.

For none but Barbara Frietchie
Dared make the Rebels mad.


The lines with stars by them are the ones I stole- do you see my problem now? Help!

Great poem! I liked it a lot, and I also wanted to thank you for having a 3:1 review to work ratio

In any case, as I said, this is a great poem. I'm not sure if General Jackson would've ever shot at the flag, though. Like General Lee, he was an American patriot.

However, I'm willing to suspend any disbelief for a poem like this. What you've done is taken a well-known poem and mimicked its style, which is precisely what a lot of people should do. It shows you the process by which the original poet created the poem while allowing you to dissect it and create it anew. The only time people get in trouble for that is when they claim their work is a wholly original work.

There are a couple things that need fixing. One is the missing quotation mark after "'Dies like a dog! March on!'". The second is the repeated use of 'And.' It got repetitive quickly, although I can see why you kept using it. Unfortunately, it takes away from the action and dulls down the story. Try seeing if you could replace 'And' with another word wherever possible.

As for re-writing the copied lines, I see your problem. However, I think you should leave them in (with due credit of course). What you're doing here is recreating Whittier's poem. Whenever you do that, it's always good to leave something of the original within the new work. Leaving the dialogue untouched is perhaps the best way to do that.

Thanks, Nate

I've always felt so bad about stealing those lines- you've soothed my conscience.

I see what you mean about the ands. Fixing! Or... fixed. What do you think of the changes?

Appreciate your review, XOXO!

~Mel

Hi there, MKate. I'm Conrad.

So, while I'm not a fan of the original poem, I do have to say that I think your version remains rather faithful to it while at the same time being a different product. In my opinion, this means that you've done a good job with this.

As for the two lines from the original, I think that they work just fine as they are. Since they are the only two words of dialogue in the original, as far as I can remember, I think that having them in your version allows readers to kind of sync up the two and see how they compare better. So, I say keep them, but make sure that you cite properly.

All in all, an enjoyable read. PM me if you have any questions or comments.

Good job, and good luck.

-Conrad Rice

Hey there! Here as requested.

I actually haven't read the poem that this is based on. But I'll still do my very best to review it for you!

Nitpicks

A symbol of honor and freedom,
And before Lee and before God

Two things kind of get me about this sentence. First are the repeats of "before" and "and", the second is the rhythm. It's pretty easy to sort out, though. It might fix it if you replaced the first "and" on the second line with "Then" and just removed the second "before". Not only is there less repetition, but it flows better too!

When Jackson set his eyes upon the Yankee flag
Away up in yonder window,

The first line feels a little long. You could change it to "When Jackson's eyes set on the flag", but that's just a suggestion!

Shot up at yonder window
And brought the flag down again.

Perhaps here you could switch around "down" and "the". It kinda sounds better.

Ok, so that's pretty much it for my nitpicks! As people have said, the lines from the original poem do work. Although I haven't actually read it - but I will do! - the two lines fit in pretty seamlessly with the rest of your poem, which shows that you've done a good rewrite!

Hope this helps, well done!

~Amy

Thanks for the reviews, and I appreciate the CC (constructive criticism)