Three Kinds Of A Rogue Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDDDEEDDDDFFDD GGDDDDHHH DDIIJKHHHHHHHHAALLHH H DDDDFFMMDDNOKKHHPPDD DDDDEEDDQQRRSSHHKKDD HHGGG PPDDDDTTUUDDSharon ambitious of immortal shame | A |
Fame's dead wall daubed with his illustrious name | A |
Served in the Senate for our sins his time | B |
Each word a folly and each vote a crime | B |
Law for our governance well skilled to make | C |
By knowledge gained in study how to break | C |
Yet still by the presiding eye ignored | D |
Which only sought him when too loud he snored | D |
Auspicious thunder when he woke to vote | D |
He stilled his own to cut his country's throat | D |
That rite performed fell off again to sleep | E |
While statesmen ages dead awoke to weep | E |
For sedentary service all unfit | D |
By lying long disqualified to sit | D |
Wasting below as he decayed aloft | D |
His seat grown harder as his brain grew soft | D |
He left the hall he could not bring away | F |
And grateful millions blessed the happy day | F |
Whate'er contention in that hall is heard | D |
His sovereign State has still the final word | D |
For disputatious statesmen when they roar | G |
Startle the ancient echoes of his snore | G |
Which from their dusty nooks expostulate | D |
And close with stormy clamor the debate | D |
To low melodious thunders then they fade | D |
Their murmuring lullabies all ears invade | D |
Peace takes the Chair the portal Silence keeps | H |
No motion stirs the dark Lethean deeps | H |
Washoe has spoken and the Senate sleeps | H |
- | |
- | |
Lo the new Sharon with a new intent | D |
Making no laws but keen to circumvent | D |
The laws of Nature since he can't repeal | I |
That break his failing body on the wheel | I |
As Tantalus again and yet again | J |
The elusive wave endeavors to restrain | K |
To slake his awful thirst so Sharon tries | H |
To purchase happiness that age denies | H |
Obtains the shadow but the substance goes | H |
And hugs the thorn but cannot keep the rose | H |
For Dead Sea fruits bids prodigally eats | H |
And then with tardy reformation cheats | H |
Alert his faculties as three score years | H |
And four score vices will permit he nears | H |
Dicing with Death the finish of the game | A |
And curses still his candle's wasting flame | A |
The narrow circle of whose feeble glow | L |
Dims and diminishes at every throw | L |
Moments his losses pleasures are his gains | H |
Which even in his grasp revert to pains | H |
The joy of grasping them alone remains | H |
- | |
- | |
Ring up the curtain and the play protract | D |
Behold our Sharon in his last mad act | D |
With man long warring quarreling with God | D |
He crouches now beneath a woman's rod | D |
Predestined for his back while yet it lay | F |
Closed in an acorn which one luckless day | F |
He stole unconscious of its foetal twig | M |
From the scant garner of a sightless pig | M |
With bleeding shoulders pitilessly scored | D |
He bawls more lustily than once he snored | D |
The sympathetic Comstocks droop to hear | N |
And Carson river sheds a viscous tear | O |
Which sturdy tumble bugs assail amain | K |
With ready thrift and urge along the plain | K |
The jackass rabbit sorrows as he lopes | H |
The sage brush glooms along the mountain slopes | H |
In rising clouds the poignant alkali | P |
Tearless itself makes everybody cry | P |
Washoe canaries on the Geiger Grade | D |
Subdue the singing of their cavalcade | D |
And wiping with their ears the tears unshed | D |
Grieve for their family's unlucky head | D |
Virginia City intermits her trade | D |
And well clad strangers walk her streets unflayed | D |
Nay all Nevada ceases work to weep | E |
And the recording angel goes to sleep | E |
But in his dreams his goose quill's creaking fount | D |
Augments the debits in the long account | D |
And still the continents and oceans ring | Q |
With royal torments of the Silver King | Q |
Incessant bellowings fill all the earth | R |
Mingled with inextinguishable mirth | R |
He roars men laugh Nevadans weep beasts howl | S |
Plash the affrighted fish and shriek the fowl | S |
With monstrous din their blended thunders rise | H |
Peal upon peal and brawl along the skies | H |
Startle in hell the Sharons as they groan | K |
And shake the splendors of the great white throne | K |
Still roaring outward through the vast profound | D |
The spreading circles of receding sound | D |
Pursue each other in a failing race | H |
To the cold confines of eternal space | H |
There break and die along that awful shore | G |
Which God's own eyes have never dared explore | G |
Dark fearful formless nameless evermore | G |
- | |
Look to the west Against yon steely sky | P |
Lone Mountain rears its holy cross on high | P |
About its base the meek faced dead are laid | D |
To share the benediction of its shade | D |
With crossed white hands shut eyes and formal feet | D |
Their nights are innocent their days discreet | D |
Sharon some years perchance remain of life | T |
Of vice and greed vulgarity and strife | T |
And then God speed the day if such His will | U |
You'll lie among the dead you helped to kill | U |
And be in good society at last | D |
Your purse unsilvered and your face unbrassed | D |
Ambrose Bierce
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Three Kinds Of A Rogue poem by Ambrose Bierce
Best Poems of Ambrose Bierce