The Cocked Hat Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGCHAIJKELMGHNOP QRS TTUVWA XYAZAA2B2EA2C2D2ZE2F 2PHG2H2I2GJ2GJK2ELML 2H M2RN2O2OP2Q2R2R2R2CC N2 FQ2LS2T2T2T2Q2Q2T2K2 U2T2T2LV2T2T2T2T2T2W 2Q2OX2T2E2T2Q2W2APT2 T2T2OQ2T2T2T2Q2H2T2A T2 T2T2T2Y2T2T2AQ2T2AQ2 Z2Q2Q2AT2T2A3Q2T2T2B 3RQ2C3T2RT2Q2Q2T2 T2Q2RQ2T2SQ2 T2T2T2D3OOT2Q2T2T2Q2 E3Q2T2T2ET2OF3T2OT2O T2 Q2Q2

Would that someone would knock Mr Bryan into a cocked hat WOODROW WILSONA
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It ain't really a hat at all EdB
You know that don't youC
When you bowl over six out of the nine pinsD
And the three that are standingE
Are the triangular three in frontF
You've knocked the nine into a cocked hatG
If it was really a hat he would be knocked in tooC
Which he hardly is For a man with moneyH
And a man who can draw a crowd to listenA
To what he says ain't all in yetI
Oh yes defeatedJ
And killed off a dozen times but stillK
He's one of the three nine pins that's standingE
Eh Why the other is Teddy the otherL
Wilson we'll say We'll see perhapsM
But six are down to make the cocked hatG
That's me and thousands of others like meH
And the first rate men who were cuffed aboutN
After the Civil WarO
And most of the more than six million menP
Who followed this fellow into the ditchQ
While he walked down the ditch and stepped to the levelR
Following an idealS
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Do you remember how slim he wasT
And trim he wasT
With black hair and pale browU
And the hawk like nose and flashing eyesV
Not turning slowly like an owlW
But with a sudden eagle motionA
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One time in ' he came hereX
And we had just a dollar and sixty centsY
In the treasury of the organizationA
So I stuck his lithograph on a poleZ
And started out for the stationA
By the time we got back here to Clark streetA2
Four thousand men were marching in lineB2
And a band that was playing for an openingE
Of a restaurant on Franklin streetA2
Had left the job and was following his carriageC2
Why it took all the money Mark Hanna could raiseD2
To beat me with nothing but a poleZ
And a lithographE2
And it wasn't because he was one of the prophetsF2
Come back to earth againP
It shows how human hearts are hungryH
How wonderfully true they areG2
And how they will rise and follow a manH2
Who seems to see the truthI2
Well these fellows who marched are the cocked hatG
And I am the cocked hat and the six millionsJ2
And more are the cocked hatG
Who got themselves despised or suspectedJ
Of ignorance or something for being with himK2
But still he's one of the pins that's standingE
He got the money that he went afterL
And he has a place in history perhapsM
Because we took the blow and fell downL2
When the ripping ball went wild on the alleyH
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For we were radicalsM2
And he wasn't a radicalR
Eh Why a radical stands for freedomN2
And for truth which he never findsO2
But always looks forO
A radical is not a moralistP2
A radical doesn't sayQ2
This is true and you must believe itR2
This is good and you must accept itR2
And if you don't believe it and accept itR2
We'll get a law and make youC
And if you don't obey the law we'll kill youC
Oh no A radical stands for freedomN2
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Do you remember that banquet at the TremontF
In ' on Jackson's dayQ2
Bryan and Altgeld walked togetherL
Out to the banquet roomS2
That's the time he said the bolters mustT2
Bring fruits meet for repentance ha ha Oh GawdT2
They never did it and they didn't have toT2
For they had made friends of the mammon of unrighteousnessQ2
Even as he did a little later in his own wayQ2
Well Darrow was there that nightT2
I thought it was terribly raw in himK2
But he said to Bryan there in a groupU2
You'd better go back to Lincoln and studyT2
Science history philosophyT2
And read Flaubert's Madam something or otherL
And quit this village religious stuffV2
You're head of the party before you are readyT2
And a leader should lead with thoughtT2
And Bryan turned to the others and saidT2
Darrow's the only man in the worldT2
Who looks down on me for believing in GodT2
Your kind of a God snapped DarrowW2
Honest Ed I didn't see this religious businessQ2
In Bryan in ' orO
Oh well I knew he went to ChurchX2
And talked as statesmen do of GodT2
But McKinley did it and I used to laughE2
We've got a man to match McKinleyT2
And it's good for us in a squeeze like thisQ2
We didn't nominate some fellowW2
Ethical culture or UnitarianA
You see the newspapers and preachers thenP
Were raising such a hullabalooT2
About irreligion and dishonestyT2
And calling old Altgeld an anarchistT2
And comparing us to RobespierreO
And the guillotine boys in FranceQ2
And a little of this religion came in handyT2
The same as if you saw a Mason button on meT2
You'd know you see but GeeT2
He was carat religiousQ2
A cover to cover manH2
He was a trained collieT2
And he looked like a lionA
There in the convention of ' What do you know about thatT2
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But right here I tell you he ain't a hypocriteT2
This ain't a pose But I'll tell youT2
In ' when they knocked him outT2
I know what he said to himself as wellY2
As if I heard him say itT2
I'll tell you in a minuteT2
But suppose you were giving a lecture on the constitutionA
And you got mixed on your datesQ2
And the audience rotten egged youT2
And some one in the confusionA
Stole the door receiptsQ2
And there you were disgraced and brokeZ2
But suppose you could just change your clothesQ2
And lecture to the same audienceQ2
On the religious nature of WashingtonA
And be applauded and make moneyT2
You'd do it wouldn't youT2
Well this is what Bill said to himselfA3
I'm naturally regular and religiousQ2
I'm a moral man and I can prove itT2
By any one in Marion CountyT2
Or Jacksonville or Lincoln NebraskaB3
I'm a radical but a radicalR
Alone can be religiousQ2
I belong to the church if not to the bankC3
Of the people who defeated meT2
And I'll prove to religious peopleR
That I'm a man to be trustedT2
And just what a radical isQ2
And I'll make some money while winning the votesQ2
Of the churches over the countryT2
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That's it it ain't hypocrisyT2
It's using what you are for endsQ2
When you find yourself in troubleR
And this accounts for The Prince of PeaceQ2
Except no one but him could write itT2
And The Value of an IdealS
Which is money in bank and several farmsQ2
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His place in historyT2
One time my grandfather who was nearly blindT2
Went out to sow some grass seedT2
They had two sacks in the barnD3
One with grass seed one with fertilizerO
And he got the sack with fertilizerO
And scattered it over the groundT2
Thinking he was sowing grassQ2
And as he was finishing up a grandchildT2
Dorothy eight years oldT2
Followed him dropping flower seedsQ2
Well after a timeE3
That was the greatest patch of weedsQ2
You ever saw And the old man satT2
Half blind on the porch and saidT2
Good land that grass is growingE
And there was nothing but weeds exceptT2
A few nasturtiums here and thereO
That Dorothy had sownF3
Well I forgotT2
There was a sunflower in one cornerO
That looked like a man with a golden beardT2
And a mass of tangled curly hairO
And a pumpkin growing near itT2
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Say Ed lend me eighty dollarsQ2
To pay my life insuranceQ2

Edgar Lee Masters



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