Lex Talionis Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCD EFEFDGAG HIHIGJGJ KLKLMLML LALALALA NANANAOAOOA APOOOOP QQRSSRTTPTTTP OOOOOO U OAAAOTo beasts of the field and fowls of the air | A |
And fish of the sea alike | B |
Man's hand is ever slow to spare | A |
And ever ready to strike | B |
With a license to kill and to work our will | C |
In season by land or by water | D |
To our heart's content we may take our fill | C |
Of the joys we derive from slaughter | D |
- | |
And few I reckon our rights gainsay | E |
In this world of rapine and wrong | F |
Where the weak and the timid seem lawful prey | E |
For the resolute and the strong | F |
Fins furs and feathers they are and were | D |
For our use and pleasure created | G |
We can shoot and hunt and angle and snare | A |
Unquestioned if not unsated | G |
- | |
I have neither the will nor the right to blame | H |
Yet to many though not to all | I |
The sweets of destruction are somewhat tame | H |
When no personal risks befall | I |
Our victims suffer but little we trust | G |
Mere guesswork and blank enigma | J |
If they suffer at all our field sports must | G |
Of cruelty bear the stigma | J |
- | |
Shall we hard hearted to their fates thus | K |
Soft hearted shrink from our own | L |
When the measure we mete is meted to us | K |
When we reap as we've always sown | L |
Shall we who for pastime have squander'd life | M |
Who are styled 'the Lords of Creation' | L |
Recoil from our chance of more equal strife | M |
And our risk of retaliation | L |
- | |
Though short is the dying pheasant's pain | L |
Scant pity you well may spare | A |
And the partridge slain is a triumph vain | L |
And a risk that a child may dare | A |
You feel when you lower the smoking gun | L |
Some ruth for yon slaughtered hare | A |
And hit or miss in your selfish fun | L |
The widgeon has little share | A |
- | |
But you've no remorseful qualms or pangs | N |
When you kneel by the grizzly's lair | A |
On that conical bullet your sole chance hangs | N |
'Tis the weak one's advantage fair | A |
And the shaggy giant's terrific fangs | N |
Are ready to crush and tear | A |
Should you miss one vision of home and friends | O |
Five words of unfinish'd prayer | A |
Three savage knife stabs so your sport ends | O |
In the worrying grapple that chokes and rends | O |
Rare sport at least for the bear | A |
- | |
Short shrift sharp fate dark doom to dree | A |
Hard struggle though quickly ending | P |
At home or abroad by land or sea | O |
In peace or war sore trials must be | O |
And worse may happen to you or to me | O |
For none are secure and none can flee | O |
From a destiny impending | P |
- | |
Ah friend did you think when the London sank | Q |
Timber by timber plank by plank | Q |
In a cauldron of boiling surf | R |
How alone at least with never a flinch | S |
In a rally contested inch by inch | S |
You could fall on the trampled turf | R |
When a livid wall of the sea leaps high | T |
In the lurid light of a leaden sky | T |
And bursts on the quarter railing | P |
While the howling storm gust seems to vie | T |
With the crash of splintered beams that fly | T |
Yet fails too oft to smother the cry | T |
Of women and children wailing | P |
- | |
Then those who listen in sinking ships | O |
To despairing sobs from their lov'd one's lips | O |
Where the green wave thus slowly shatters | O |
May long for the crescent claw that rips | O |
The bison into ribbons and strips | O |
And tears the strong elk to tatters | O |
- | |
Oh sunderings short of body and breath | U |
Oh 'battle and murder and sudden death ' | - |
Against which the Liturgy preaches | O |
By the will of a just yet a merciful Power | A |
Less bitter perchance in the mystic hour | A |
When the wings of the shadowy angel lower | A |
Than man in his blindness teaches | O |
Adam Lindsay Gordon
(1)
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