Substance Versus Shadow Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDEFGHHIIJJKKLL MLNNOOPPQQQRRSSTTUUV VV| So gentle critics you would have me tilt | A |
| Not at the guilty only just at Guilt | A |
| Spare the offender and condemn Offense | B |
| And make life miserable to Pretense | B |
| 'Whip Vice and Folly that is satire's use | C |
| But be not personal for that's abuse | C |
| Nor e'er forget what 'like a razor keen | D |
| Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen '' | E |
| Well friends I venture destitute of awe | F |
| To think that razor but an old old saw | G |
| A trifle rusty and a wound I'm sure | H |
| That's felt not seen not one can well endure | H |
| Go to go to you're as unfitted quite | I |
| To give advice to writers as to write | I |
| I find in Folly and in Vice a lack | J |
| Of head to hit and for the lash no back | J |
| Whilst Pixley has a pow that's easy struck | K |
| And though good Deacon Fitch a Fitch for luck | K |
| Has none yet lest he go entirely free | L |
| God gave to him a corn a heel to me | L |
| He also sets his face so like a flint | M |
| The wonder grows that Pickering doesn't skin't | L |
| With cold austerity against these wars | N |
| On scamps 'tis Scampery that he abhors | N |
| Behold advance in dignity and state | O |
| Grave smug serene indubitably great | O |
| Stanford philanthropist One hand bestows | P |
| In alms what t'other one as justice owes | P |
| Rascality attends him like a shade | Q |
| But closes woundless o'er my baffled blade | Q |
| Its limbs unsevered spirit undismayed | Q |
| Faith I'm for something can be made to feel | R |
| If like Pelides only in the heel | R |
| The fellow's self invites assault his crimes | S |
| Will each bear killing twenty thousand times | S |
| Anon Creed Haymond but the list is long | T |
| Of names to point the moral of my song | T |
| Rogues fools impostors sycophants they rise | U |
| They foul the earth and horrify the skies | U |
| With Mr Huntington sole honest man | V |
| In all the reek of that rapscallion clan | V |
| Denouncing Theft as hard as e'er he can | V |
Ambrose Bierce
(1)
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About Substance Versus Shadow
Substance Versus Shadow is a poem by Ambrose Bierce. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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