A Dilemma Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAAB CDCCD E EEF GHGGH IHIIH JKLLK LMLL NMMMM| Filled with a zeal to serve my fellow men | A |
| For years I criticised their prose and verges | B |
| Pointed out all their blunders of the pen | A |
| Their shallowness of thought and feeling then | A |
| Damned them up hill and down with hearty curses | B |
| - | |
| They said 'That's all that he can do just sneer | C |
| And pull to pieces and be analytic | D |
| Why doesn't he himself eschewing fear | C |
| Publish a book or two and so appear | C |
| As one who has the right to be a critic | D |
| - | |
| 'Let him who knows it all forbear to tell | E |
| How little others know but show his learning ' | - |
| The public added 'Who has written well | E |
| May censure freely' quoting Pope I fell | E |
| Into the trap and books began out turning | F |
| - | |
| Books by the score fine prose and poems fair | G |
| And not a book of them but was a terror | H |
| They were so great and perfect though I swear | G |
| I tried right hard to work in here and there | G |
| My nature still forbade a fault or error | H |
| - | |
| 'Tis true some wretches whom I'd scratched no doubt | I |
| Professed to find but that's a trifling matter | H |
| Now when the flood of noble books was out | I |
| I raised o'er all that land a joyous shout | I |
| Till I was thought as mad as any hatter | H |
| - | |
| Why hatters all are mad I cannot say | J |
| 'T were wrong in their affliction to revile 'em | K |
| But truly you'll confess 'tis very sad | L |
| We wear the ugly things they make Begad | L |
| They'd be less mischievous in an asylum | K |
| - | |
| 'Consistency thou art a' well you're paste | L |
| When next I felt my demon in possession | M |
| And made the field of authorship a waste | L |
| All said of me 'What execrable taste | L |
| To rail at others of his own profession ' | - |
| - | |
| Good Lord where do the critic's rights begin | N |
| Who has of literature some clear cut notion | M |
| And hears a voice from Heaven say 'Pitch in' | M |
| He finds himself alas poor son of sin | M |
| Between the devil and the deep blue ocean | M |
Ambrose Bierce
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about A Dilemma poem by Ambrose Bierce
Best Poems of Ambrose Bierce