Carmelite Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDAEFDDF GGHIIH JJAKKA LLLMM MNOOPPN AAQQRRASSTTAs Death was a riding out one day | A |
Across Mount Carmel he took his way | A |
Where he met a mendicant monk | B |
Some three or four quarters drunk | B |
With a holy leer and a pious grin | C |
Ragged and fat and as saucy as sin | C |
Who held out his hands and cried | D |
'Give give in Charity's name I pray | A |
Give in the name of the Church O give | E |
Give that her holy sons may live ' | F |
And Death replied | D |
Smiling long and wide | D |
'I'll give holy father I'll give thee a ride ' | F |
- | |
With a rattle and bang | G |
Of his bones he sprang | G |
From his famous Pale Horse with his spear | H |
By the neck and the foot | I |
Seized the fellow and put | I |
Him astride with his face to the rear | H |
- | |
The Monarch laughed loud with a sound that fell | J |
Like clods on the coffin's sounding shell | J |
'Ho ho A beggar on horseback they say | A |
Will ride to the devil ' and thump | K |
Fell the flat of his dart on the rump | K |
Of the charger which galloped away | A |
- | |
Faster and faster and faster it flew | L |
Till the rocks and the flocks and the trees that grew | L |
By the road were dim and blended and blue | L |
To the wild wide eyes | M |
Of the rider in size | M |
- | |
Resembling a couple of blackberry pies | M |
Death laughed again as a tomb might laugh | N |
At a burial service spoiled | O |
And the mourners' intentions foiled | O |
By the body erecting | P |
Its head and objecting | P |
To further proceedings in its behalf | N |
- | |
Many a year and many a day | A |
Have passed since these events away | A |
The monk has long been a dusty corse | Q |
And Death has never recovered his horse | Q |
For the friar got hold of its tail | R |
And steered it within the pale | R |
Of the monastery gray | A |
Where the beast was stabled and fed | S |
With barley oil and bread | S |
Till fatter it grew than the fattest friar | T |
And so in due course was appointed Prior | T |
Ambrose Bierce
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Carmelite poem by Ambrose Bierce
Best Poems of Ambrose Bierce