Anton Sosnowski Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHGGIJKL HGMNOPCQIIGRSG IGTSUGSIIGIIGGGG IIVIGJJJICGIIW XJIGIIC IJIGGJYSGGGIZA2GGSB2 GGSJGG GC2ID2IGIIG XE2B2SGJIJJIIIF2GB2G GG2H2IIG ISGSSJIISGSGGIDIIGIG IA2IIGCSGSGG IGA2GGI I2F2GGSIGJJJ2G2GGGGG I GB2A2GIA2SIGGJ GSA2K2GGGGD2L2GGT GSA2GTGGGGGGM2GGGN2G GO2SP2JQ2R2GZE2GS2GS 2 GGGGXGGGST2GU2V2GSW2 GGH2GB2B2G GJGGDJ TGJGGGE2X2G JGGJGSY2GGAnton Sosnowski from the Shakspeare School | A |
Where he assists the janitor sweeps and dusts | B |
The day now done sits by a smeared up table | C |
Munching coarse bread and drinking beer before him | D |
The evening paper spread held down or turned | E |
By claw like hands covered with shiny scars | F |
He broods upon the war news and his fate | G |
Which keeps him from the war looks up and sees | H |
His scarred face in the mirror over the wainscot | G |
His lashless eyes and browless brows and head | G |
With patches of thin hair And then he mutters | I |
Hot curses to himself and turns the paper | J |
And curses Germany and asks revenge | K |
For Poland's wrongs | L |
- | |
And what is this he sees | H |
The picture of his ruin and his hate | G |
Wert Rufus Fox This leader of the bar | M |
Is made the counselor of the city now | N |
The city takes gas cars and telephones | O |
And runs them for the people So this man | P |
Grown rich through machinations against the people | C |
Who fought the people all his life before | Q |
Abettor aider thinker for the slickers | I |
Regraters and forestallers and engrossers | I |
Is now the friend adviser of the city | G |
Which he so balked and thwarted growing rich | R |
Feared noted bowed to for the very treason | S |
For which he is so hated yet deferred to | G |
- | |
And Anton looks upon the picture reads | I |
About the great man's ancestry here printed | G |
And all the great achievements of his life | T |
Once president of the bar association | S |
And member of this club and of that club | U |
Contributor to charities and art | G |
A founder of a library a vestryman | S |
And Anton looks upon the picture trembles | I |
Before the picture's eyes They are the eyes | I |
Of Innocent the Tenth with cruelty | G |
And cunning added eyes that see all things | I |
And boulder jaws that crush all things the jaws | I |
That place themselves at front of drifts are placed | G |
By that world irony which mocks the good | G |
And gives the glory and the victory | G |
To strength and greed | G |
- | |
Anton Sosnowski looks | I |
Long at the picture then at his own hands | I |
And laughs maniacally as he takes the mug | V |
With both hands like a bird with frozen claws | I |
These broken burned off hands which handle bread | G |
As they were wooden rakes And in a mirror | J |
Beside the table in the wall smeared over | J |
With steam from red hots kraut and cookery | J |
Of smoking fats fixed by the dust in blurs | I |
And streaks he sees his own face horrible | C |
For scars and splotches as of leprosy | G |
The eyes that have no lashes and no brows | I |
The bullet head that has no hair the ears | I |
Burnt off at top | W |
- | |
So comes it to this Pole | X |
Who sees beside the picture of the lawyer | J |
The clear cut face of Elenor Murray yes | I |
She gave her spirit to the war is dead | G |
Her life is being sifted now But Fox | I |
Lives for more honors and by honors covers | I |
His days of evil | C |
- | |
Thus Sosnowski broods | I |
And lives again that moment of hell when fire | J |
Burst like a geyser from a vat where gas | I |
Had gathered in his ignorance being sent | G |
To light a drying stove within the vat | G |
A work not his who was the engineer | J |
The gas exploded as he struck the match | Y |
And like an insect fixed upon a pin | S |
And held before a flame hands face and body | G |
Were burned and broken as his body shot | G |
Up and against the brewery wall What next | G |
The wearisome and tangled ways of courts | I |
With Rufus Fox for foe four trials in all | Z |
Where juries disagreed who heard the law | A2 |
Erroneously given by the court | G |
At last a verdict favorable and a court | G |
Sitting above the forum where he won | S |
To say as there's no evidence to show | B2 |
Just how the gas got in the vat Sosnowski | G |
Must go for life with broken hands unhelped | G |
And that the fact alone of gas therein | S |
Though naught to show his fault had brought it there | J |
The mere explosion did not speak a fault | G |
Against the brewery | G |
- | |
Out from court he went | G |
To use a broom with crumpled hands and look | C2 |
For life in mirrors at his ghastly face | I |
And brood until suspicion grew to truth | D2 |
That Rufus Fox had compassed juries courts | I |
And read of Rufus Fox who day by day | G |
Was featured in the press for noble deeds | I |
For Art or Charity for notable dinners | I |
Guests travels and what not | G |
- | |
So now the Pole | X |
Reading of Elenor Murray cursed himself | E2 |
That he could brood and wait for what and grow | B2 |
More weak of will for brooding while this woman | S |
Had gone to war and served and ended it | G |
Yet he lived on and could not go to war | J |
Saw only days of sweeping with these hands | I |
And every day his face within the mirror | J |
And every afternoon this glass of beer | J |
And coarse bread and these thoughts | I |
And every day some story to arouse | I |
His sense of justice how the generous | I |
Give and pass on and how the selfish live | F2 |
And gather honors But Sosnowski thought | G |
If I could do a flaming thing to show | B2 |
What courts are ours what matter if I die | G |
What if they took their quick lime and erased | G |
My flesh and bones expunged my very name | G2 |
And made its syllables forbidden still | H2 |
If I brought in a new day for the courts | I |
Have I not served he thought Sosnowski rose | I |
And to the bar drank whiskey then went out | G |
- | |
That afternoon Elihu Rufus Fox | I |
Came home to dress for a dinner to be given | S |
For English notables in town to rest | G |
After a bath and found himself alone | S |
His wife at Red Cross work And there alone | S |
Collarless lounging in a comfort chair | J |
Poring on Wordsworth's poems all at once | I |
Before he hears the door turned rather feels | I |
A foot fall and a presence hears too soon | S |
A pistol shot looks up and sees Sosnowski | G |
Who fires again but misses grabs the man | S |
Disarms him flings him down and finding blood | G |
Upon his shirt sleeve sees his hand is hit | G |
No other damage then the pistol takes | I |
And covering Sosnowski looks at him | D |
And after several seconds gets the face | I |
Which gradually comes forth from memories | I |
Of many cases knows the man at last | G |
And studying Sosnowski Rufus Fox | I |
Divines what drove the fellow to this deed | G |
And in these moments Rufus Fox beholds | I |
His life and work and how he made the law | A2 |
A thing to use how he had builded friendships | I |
In clubs and churches courted politicians | I |
And played with secret powers and compromised | G |
Causes and truths for power and capital | C |
To draw on as a lawyer so to win | S |
Favorable judgments when his skill was hired | G |
By those who wished to win who had to win | S |
To keep the social order undisturbed | G |
And wealth where it was wrenched to | G |
- | |
And Rufus Fox | I |
Knew that this trembling wreck before him knew | G |
About this course of life at making law | A2 |
And using law and using those who sit | G |
To administer the law And then he said | G |
Why did you do this | I |
- | |
And Sosnowski spoke | I2 |
I meant to kill you where's your right to live | F2 |
When millions have been killed to make the world | G |
A safer place for liberty Where's your right | G |
To live and have more honors be the man | S |
To guide the city now that telephones | I |
Gas railways have been taken by the city | G |
I meant to kill you just to help the poor | J |
Who go to court For had I killed you here | J |
My story would be known no matter if | J2 |
They buried me in lime and made my name | G2 |
A word no man could speak Now I have failed | G |
And since you have the pistol point it at me | G |
And kill me now for if you tell the world | G |
You killed me in defense of self the world | G |
Will never doubt you for the world believes you | G |
And will not doubt your word whatever it is | I |
- | |
And Rufus Fox replied Your mind is turned | G |
For thinking of your case when you should know | B2 |
This country is a place of laws and law | A2 |
Must have its way no matter who is hurt | G |
Now I must turn you over to the courts | I |
And let you feel the hard hand of the law | A2 |
Just then the wife of Rufus Fox came in | S |
And saw her husband with his granite jaws | I |
And lowering countenance blood on his shirt | G |
The pistol in his hand the scarred Sosnowski | G |
Facing the lawyer | J |
- | |
Seeing that her husband | G |
Had no wound but a hand clipped of the skin | S |
And learning what the story was she saw | A2 |
It was no time to let Sosnowski's wrong | K2 |
Come out to cloud the glory of her husband | G |
Now that in a new day he had come to stand | G |
With progress fairer terms of life to let | G |
The corpse of a dead day be brought beside | G |
The fresh and breathing life of brighter truth | D2 |
Quickly she called the butler gave him charge | L2 |
Over Sosnowski who was taken out | G |
Held in the kitchen while the two conferred | G |
The husband and the wife | T |
- | |
To him she said | G |
They two alone now I can see your plan | S |
To turn this fellow over to the law | A2 |
It will not do my dear it will not do | G |
For though I have been sharer in your life | T |
Partaker of its spoils and fruits I see | G |
This man is just a ghost of a dead day | G |
Of your past life perhaps in which I shared | G |
But that dead life I would not resurrect | G |
In memory even it has passed us by | G |
You shall not live it more no more shall I | G |
The war has changed the world the harvest coming | M2 |
Will have its tares no doubt but the old tares | G |
Have been cut out and burned wholly I trust | G |
And just to think you used that sharpened talent | G |
For getting money place in the old regime | N2 |
To place you where to day Why where you must | G |
Use all your talents for the common good | G |
A barter takes two parties and the traffic | O2 |
Whereby the giants of the era gone | S |
You are a giant rising on the wreck | P2 |
Of programs and of plots made riches for | J |
Themselves and those they served is gone as well | Q2 |
Since gradually no one is left to serve | R2 |
Or have an interest but the state or city | G |
The community which is all and should be all | Z |
So here you are at last despite yourself | E2 |
Changed not in mind perhaps but changed in place | G |
Work interest taking pride too in the work | S2 |
And speaking with your outer mind at least | G |
Praise for the day and work | S2 |
- | |
I am at fault | G |
And take no virtue to myself I lived | G |
Your life with you and coveted the things | G |
Your labors brought me All is changed for me | G |
I would be poorer than this wretched Pole | X |
Rather than go back to the day that's dead | G |
Or reassume the moods I lived them through | G |
What can we do now to undo the past | G |
Those days of self indulgence ostentation | S |
False prestige witless pride that waste of time | T2 |
Money and spirit haunted by ennui | G |
Insatiable emotion thirst for change | U2 |
At least we can do this We can set up | V2 |
The race's progress and our country's glory | G |
As standards for our work each day go on | S |
Perhaps in ignorance misguided faith | W2 |
And let the end approve our poor attempts | G |
Now to begin I ask two things of you | G |
If you or anyone who did your will | H2 |
Wronged this poor Pole make good the wrong at once | G |
And for the sake of bigness let him go | B2 |
For your own name's sake let the fellow go | B2 |
Do you so promise me | G |
- | |
And Rufus Fox | G |
Who looked a thunder cloud of wrath and power | J |
Before the mirror tying his white tie | G |
All this time silent only spoke these words | G |
Go tell the butler to keep guard on him | D |
And hold him till we come from dinner | J |
- | |
The wife | T |
Looked at the red black face of Rufus Fox | G |
There in the mirror which like Lao's mirror | J |
Reflected what his mind was then went out | G |
Gently to her bidding found Sosnowski | G |
Laughing and talking with the second maid | G |
Watched over by the butler quite himself | E2 |
His pent up anger half discharged his grudge | X2 |
In part relieved | G |
- | |
There was a garrulous ancient at LeRoy | J |
Who traced all evils to monopoly | G |
In land all social cures to single tax | G |
He tried to button hole the coroner | J |
And tell him what he thought of Elenor Murray | G |
But Merival escaped And then this man | S |
Consider Freeland named got in a group | Y2 |
And talked his mind out of the case the land | G |
And what makes poverty and waste in lives | G |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
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