A Reply To A Letter Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABBCCDCDDC EFEFGHIIG BBJBJJKH EBEBLLEEEE MMNENNE IIOOO| O nonsense parson tell me not they thrive | A |
| And jubilate who follow your dictation | B |
| The good are the unhappiest lot alive | A |
| I know they are from careful observation | B |
| If freedom from the terrors of damnation | B |
| Lengthens the visage like a telescope | C |
| And lacrymation is a sign of hope | C |
| Then I'll continue in my dreadful plight | D |
| To tread the dusky paths of sin and grope | C |
| Contentedly without your lantern's light | D |
| And though in many a bog beslubbered quite | D |
| Refuse to flay me with ecclesiastic soap | C |
| - | |
| You say 'tis a sad world seeing I'm condemned | E |
| With many a million others of my kidney | F |
| Each continent's Hammed Japheted and Shemmed | E |
| With sinners worldlings like Sir Philip Sidney | F |
| And scoffers like Voltaire who thought it bliss | G |
| To simulate respect for Genesis | H |
| Who bent the mental knee as if in prayer | I |
| But mocked at Moses underneath his hair | I |
| And like an angry gander bowed his head to hiss | G |
| - | |
| Seeing such as these who die without contrition | B |
| Must go to beg your pardon sir perdition | B |
| The sons of light you tell me can't be gay | J |
| But count it sin of the sort called omission | B |
| The groan to smother or the tear to stay | J |
| Or fail to what is that they live by pray | J |
| So down they flop and the whole serious race is | K |
| Put by divine compassion on a praying basis | H |
| - | |
| Well if you take it so to heart while yet | E |
| Our own hearts are so light with nature's leaven | B |
| You'll weep indeed when we in Hades sweat | E |
| And you look down upon us out of Heaven | B |
| In fancy lo I see your wailing shades | L |
| Thronging the crystal battlements Cascades | L |
| Of tears spring singing from each golden spout | E |
| Run roaring from the verge with hoarser sound | E |
| Dash downward through the glimmering profound | E |
| Quench the tormenting flame and put the Devil out | E |
| - | |
| Presumptuous ass to you no power belongs | M |
| To pitchfork me to Heaven upon the prongs | M |
| Of a bad pen whose disobedient sputter | N |
| With less of ink than incoherence fraught | E |
| Befits the folly that it tries to utter | N |
| Brains I observe as well as tongues can stutter | N |
| You suffer from impediment of thought | E |
| - | |
| When next you 'point the way to Heaven ' take care | I |
| Your fingers all being thumbs point Heaven knows where | I |
| Farewell poor dunce your letter though I blame | O |
| Bears witness how my anger I can tame | O |
| I've called you everything except your hateful name | O |
Ambrose Bierce
(1)
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