The Transmigrations Of A Soul Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD EEFFGG HHIIJJFFKKFFFF LLMMNNOOFC PPQQRRLL SSTTKKUU VVWWXFF LLYYEEZZA2A2| What Pixley must I hear you call the roll | A |
| Of all the vices that infest your soul | A |
| Was't not enough that lately you did bawl | B |
| Your money worship in the ears of all | B |
| Still must you crack your brazen cheek to tell | C |
| That though a miser you're a sot as well | C |
| Still must I hear how low your taste has sunk | D |
| From getting money down to getting drunk | D |
| - | |
| Who worships money damning all beside | E |
| And shows his callous knees with pious pride | E |
| Speaks with half knowledge for no man e'er scorns | F |
| His own possessions be they coins or corns | F |
| You've money neighbor had you gentle birth | G |
| You'd know as now you never can its worth | G |
| - | |
| You've money learning is beyond your scope | H |
| Deaf to your envy stubborn to your hope | H |
| But if upon your undeserving head | I |
| Science and letters had their glory shed | I |
| If in the cavern of your skull the light | J |
| Of knowledge shone where now eternal night | J |
| Breeds the blind poddy vapor fatted naughts | F |
| Of cerebration that you think are thoughts | F |
| Black bats in cold and dismal corners hung | K |
| That squeak and gibber when you move your tongue | K |
| You would not write in Avarice's defense | F |
| A senseless eulogy on lack of sense | F |
| Nor show your eagerness to sacrifice | F |
| All noble virtues to one loathsome vice | F |
| - | |
| You've money if you'd manners too you'd shame | L |
| To boast your weakness or your baseness name | L |
| Appraise the things you have but measure not | M |
| The things denied to your unhappy lot | M |
| He values manners lighter than a cork | N |
| Who combs his beard at table with a fork | N |
| Hare to seek sin and tortoise to forsake | O |
| The laws of taste condemn you to the stake | O |
| To expiate where all the world may see | F |
| The crime of growing old disgracefully | C |
| - | |
| Religion learning birth and manners too | P |
| All that distinguishes a man from you | P |
| Pray damn at will all shining virtues gain | Q |
| An added luster from a rogue's disdain | Q |
| But spare the young that proselyting sin | R |
| A toper's apotheosis of gin | R |
| If not our young at least our pigs may claim | L |
| Exemption from the spectacle of shame | L |
| - | |
| Are you not he who lately out of shape | S |
| Blew a brass trumpet to denounce the grape | S |
| Who led the brave teetotalers afield | T |
| And slew your leader underneath your shield | T |
| Swore that no man should drink unless he flung | K |
| Himself across your body at the bung | K |
| Who vowed if you'd the power you would fine | U |
| The Son of God for making water wine | U |
| - | |
| All trails to odium you tread and boast | V |
| Yourself enamored of the dirtiest most | V |
| One day to be a miser you aspire | W |
| The next to wallow drunken in the mire | W |
| The third lo you're a meritorious liar | X |
| Pray in the catalogue of all your graces | F |
| Have theft and cowardice no honored places | F |
| - | |
| Yield thee great Satan here's a rival name | L |
| With all thy vices and but half thy shame | L |
| Quick to the letter of the precept quick | Y |
| To the example of the elder Nick | Y |
| With as great talent as was e'er applied | E |
| To fool a teacher and to fog a guide | E |
| With slack allegiance and boundless greed | Z |
| To paunch the profit of a traitor deed | Z |
| He aims to make thy glory all his own | A2 |
| And crowd his master from the infernal throne | A2 |
Ambrose Bierce
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