Other Ingredients Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBACDDEDFFGHIIGHJKL LEEMMAANOONPQRQSTHSU UUUUUU VVWWXXUUUYUYZIZIA2QA 2QB2B2C2C2D2HHD2E2E2 QQUE2UQF2F2UUUU| To make a perfect fish menu | A |
| The witches found they had to place | B |
| Upon this alcoholic base | B |
| Great stacks of food and spices too | A |
| Of all the things most edible | C |
| On which the souls of fish have dined | D |
| That fish would sell their souls to find | D |
| Most gracious to their sense of smell | E |
| Is flesh exotic to their kind | D |
| Cold blooded things yet not marine | F |
| And not of earth but half between | F |
| That live enclosed within the sand | G |
| Without the power of locomotion | H |
| And mammal breeds whose blood is hot | I |
| That court the sea but love it not | I |
| That need the air but not the land | G |
| The Laodiceans of the ocean | H |
| So in this spacious cauldron went | J |
| Cargoes of food and condiment | K |
| Oysters fished from Behring Strait | L |
| Were brought and thrown in by the crate | L |
| Spitzbergen scallops on half shell | E |
| Mussels starfish clams as well | E |
| Limpets from the Hebrides | M |
| Shrimps and periwinkles these | M |
| So celebrated as a stew | A |
| Were meant to flavour up the brew | A |
| Then for the more substantial fare | N |
| The curried quarter of a tail | O |
| Hewn from a stranded Greenland whale | O |
| A liver from a Polar bear | N |
| A walrus' heart and pancreas | P |
| A blind Auk from the coast of Java | Q |
| A bull moose that had died from gas | R |
| While eating toadstools near Ungava | Q |
| One bitter cold November day | S |
| Five sea lion cubs were then thrown in | T |
| Shot by the Cretan's javelin | H |
| In a wild fight off Uruguay | S |
| With flippers fresh from the Azores | U |
| Fijian kidneys by the scores | U |
| Together with some pollywogs | U |
| And kippered hocks of centipedes | U |
| And the hind legs of huge bull frogs | U |
| Raked by the millions from the reeds | U |
| Of slimy Patagonian bogs | U |
| - | |
| Then before the copper lid | V |
| Was jammed upon the pyramid | V |
| The sisters scattered on the top | W |
| Many a juicy lollipop | W |
| Tongues from the Ganges crocodile | X |
| Spawn from the delta of the Nile | X |
| Hoofs of sheep and loins of goats | U |
| Raised from foundered cattle boats | U |
| Titbits they knew might blend with hops | U |
| Might strengthen rum or season rye | Y |
| From Zulu hams and Papuan chops | U |
| To filets mignons from Shanghai | Y |
| Now while volcanic fires burned | Z |
| Making the cauldron fiercely hot | I |
| Lulu with her ladle churned | Z |
| The pungent contents of the pot | I |
| From which distinctive vapours soon | A2 |
| Rose palpably before the view | Q |
| Then Ardath summoned a typhoon | A2 |
| Which as it swooped upon the stew | Q |
| And swept around the compass bore | B2 |
| To every sea and every shore | B2 |
| The tidings of the witches' Feast | C2 |
| And from the West and from the East | C2 |
| And from the South and from the North | D2 |
| From every bay and strait and run | H |
| From the Tropics to the Arctic sun | H |
| The Parliament of fish came forth | D2 |
| Lured by a smell surpassing far | E2 |
| The potencies of boiling tar | E2 |
| For essences were in this brew | Q |
| Unknown to blubber or to glue | Q |
| And unfamiliar to the nose | U |
| Of sailors hardened as they are | E2 |
| To every unctuous wind that blows | U |
| From Nantucket to Baccalieu | Q |
| The crudest oil one ever lit | F2 |
| Was frankincense compared to it | F2 |
| It entered Hades and the airs | U |
| Resuscitated the Immortals | U |
| It climbed the empyrean stairs | U |
| And drove St Peter from the portals | U |
E. J. Pratt
(1)
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About Other Ingredients
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