Lex Talionis - A Moral Discourse Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABC DEDEFGFG HIHIGJDJ KLKLJMJM NONOPQPQ RDRDQDQD SDSDSDTDTTD DUTTTTU VVWXXWYYUYYYU TTTTTT ZZTDDDTAnd if there's blood upon his hand | A |
'Tis but the blood of deer | B |
W Scott | C |
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To beasts of the field and fowls of the air | D |
And fish of the sea alike | E |
Man's hand is ever slow to spare | D |
And ever ready to strike | E |
With a license to kill and to work our will | F |
In season by land or by water | G |
To our heart's content we may take our fill | F |
Of the joys we derive from slaughter | G |
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And few I reckon our rights gainsay | H |
In this world of rapine and wrong | I |
Where the weak and the timid seem lawful prey | H |
For the resolute and the strong | I |
Fins furs and feathers they are and were | G |
For our use and pleasure created | J |
We can shoot and hunt and angle and snare | D |
Unquestioned if not unsated | J |
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I have neither the will nor the right to blame | K |
Yet to many though not to all | L |
The sweets of destruction are somewhat tame | K |
When no personal risks befall | L |
Our victims suffer but little we trust | J |
Mere guess work and blank enigma | M |
If they suffer at all our field sports must | J |
Of cruelty bear the stigma | M |
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Shall we hard hearted to their fates thus | N |
Soft hearted shrink from our own | O |
When the measure we mete is meted to us | N |
When we reap as we've always sown | O |
Shall we who for pastime have squander'd life | P |
Who are styled the Lords of Creation | Q |
Recoil from our chance of more equal strife | P |
And our risk of retaliation | Q |
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Though short is the dying pheasant's pain | R |
Scant pity you well may spare | D |
And the partridge slain is a triumph vain | R |
And a risk that a child may dare | D |
You feel when you lower the smoking gun | Q |
Some ruth for yon slaughtered hare | D |
And hit or miss in your selfish fun | Q |
The widgeon has little share | D |
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But you've no remorseful qualms or pangs | S |
When you kneel by the grizzly's lair | D |
On that conical bullet your sole chance hangs | S |
'Tis the weak one's advantage fair | D |
And the shaggy giant's terrific fangs | S |
Are ready to crush and tear | D |
Should you miss one vision of home and friends | T |
Five words of unfinished prayer | D |
Three savage knife stabs so your sport ends | T |
In the worrying grapple that chokes and rends | T |
Rare sport at least for the bear | D |
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Short shrift sharp fate dark doom to dree | D |
Hard struggle though quickly ending | U |
At home or abroad by land or sea | T |
In peace or war sore trials must be | T |
And worse may happen to you or to me | T |
For none are secure and none can flee | T |
From a destiny impending | U |
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Ah friend did you think when the London sank | V |
Timber by timber plank by plank | V |
In a cauldron of boiling surf | W |
How alone at least with never a flinch | X |
In a rally contested inch by inch | X |
You could fall on the trampled turf | W |
When a livid wall of the sea leaps high | Y |
In the lurid light of a leaden sky | Y |
And bursts on the quarter railing | U |
While the howling storm gust seems to vie | Y |
With the crash of splintered beams that fly | Y |
Yet fails too oft to smother the cry | Y |
Of women and children wailing | U |
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Then those who listen in sinking ships | T |
To despairing sobs from their lov'd one's lips | T |
Where the green wave thus slowly shatters | T |
May long for the crescent claw that rips | T |
The bison into ribbons and strips | T |
And tears the strong elk to tatters | T |
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Oh sunderings short of body and breath | Z |
Oh battle and murder and sudden death | Z |
Against which the Liturgy preaches | T |
By the will of a just yet a merciful Power | D |
Less bitter perchance in the mystic hour | D |
When the wings of the shadowy angel lower | D |
Than man in his blindness teaches | T |
Adam Lindsay Gordon
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