To A Censor Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDDEFFGEHHIIJJ KKDDDDLL MMNNOOPPQQ RRSSDDTT DDDDKKUUQQDD DDDDGG| Delay responsible Why then my friend | A |
| Impeach Delay and you will make an end | A |
| Thrust vile Delay in jail and let it rot | B |
| For doing all the things that it should not | B |
| Put not good natured judges under bond | C |
| But make Delay in damages respond | C |
| Minos Aeacus Rhadamanthus rolled | D |
| Into one pitiless unsmiling scold | D |
| Unsparing censor be your thongs uncurled | D |
| To 'lash the rascals naked through the world ' | E |
| The rascals Nay Rascality's the thing | F |
| Above whose back your knotted scourges sing | F |
| Your satire truly like a razor keen | G |
| 'Wounds with a touch that's neither felt nor seen ' | E |
| For naught that you assail with falchion free | H |
| Has either nerves to feel or eyes to see | H |
| Against abstractions evermore you charge | I |
| You hack no helmet and you need no targe | I |
| That wickedness is wrong and sin a vice | J |
| That wrong's not right and foulness never nice | J |
| Fearless affirm All consequences dare | K |
| Smite the offense and the offender spare | K |
| When Ananias and Sapphira lied | D |
| Falsehood had you been there had surely died | D |
| When money changers in the Temple sat | D |
| At money changing you'd have whirled the 'cat' | D |
| That John the Baptist of the modern pen | L |
| And all the brokers would have cried amen | L |
| - | |
| Good friend if any judge deserve your blame | M |
| Have you no courage or has he no name | M |
| Upon his method will you wreak your wrath | N |
| Himself all unmolested in his path | N |
| Fall to fall to your club no longer draw | O |
| To beat the air or flail a man of straw | O |
| Scorn to do justice like the Saxon thrall | P |
| Who cuffed the offender's shadow on a wall | P |
| Let rascals in the flesh attest your zeal | Q |
| Knocked on the mazzard or tripped up at heel | Q |
| - | |
| We know that judges are corrupt We know | R |
| That crimes are lively and that laws are slow | R |
| We know that lawyers lie and doctors slay | S |
| That priests and preachers are but birds of pray | S |
| That merchants cheat and journalists for gold | D |
| Flatter the vicious while at vice they scold | D |
| 'Tis all familiar as the simple lore | T |
| That two policemen and two thieves make four | T |
| - | |
| But since while some are wicked some are good | D |
| As trees may differ though they all are wood | D |
| Names here and there to show whose head is hit | D |
| The bad would sentence and the good acquit | D |
| In sparing everybody none you spare | K |
| Rebukes most personal are least unfair | K |
| To fire at random if you still prefer | U |
| And swear at Dog but never kick a cur | U |
| Permit me yet one ultimate appeal | Q |
| To something that you understand and feel | Q |
| Let thrift and vanity your heart persuade | D |
| You might be read if you would learn your trade | D |
| - | |
| Good brother cynics you have doubtless guessed | D |
| Not one of you but all are here addressed | D |
| Remember this the shaft that seeks a heart | D |
| Draws all eyes after it an idle dart | D |
| Shot at some shadow flutters o'er the green | G |
| Its flight unheeded and its fall unseen | G |
Ambrose Bierce
(1)
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About To A Censor
To A Censor is a poem by Ambrose Bierce. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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