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 Q2Q2Would that someone would knock Mr Bryan into a cocked hat WOODROW WILSON | A |
- | |
- | |
It ain't really a hat at all Ed | B |
You know that don't you | C |
When you bowl over six out of the nine pins | D |
And the three that are standing | E |
Are the triangular three in front | F |
You've knocked the nine into a cocked hat | G |
If it was really a hat he would be knocked in too | C |
Which he hardly is For a man with money | H |
And a man who can draw a crowd to listen | A |
To what he says ain't all in yet | I |
Oh yes defeated | J |
And killed off a dozen times but still | K |
He's one of the three nine pins that's standing | E |
Eh Why the other is Teddy the other | L |
Wilson we'll say We'll see perhaps | M |
But six are down to make the cocked hat | G |
That's me and thousands of others like me | H |
And the first rate men who were cuffed about | N |
After the Civil War | O |
And most of the more than six million men | P |
Who followed this fellow into the ditch | Q |
While he walked down the ditch and stepped to the level | R |
Following an ideal | S |
- | |
- | |
- | |
Do you remember how slim he was | T |
And trim he was | T |
With black hair and pale brow | U |
And the hawk like nose and flashing eyes | V |
Not turning slowly like an owl | W |
But with a sudden eagle motion | A |
- | |
One time in ' he came here | X |
And we had just a dollar and sixty cents | Y |
In the treasury of the organization | A |
So I stuck his lithograph on a pole | Z |
And started out for the station | A |
By the time we got back here to Clark street | A2 |
Four thousand men were marching in line | B2 |
And a band that was playing for an opening | E |
Of a restaurant on Franklin street | A2 |
Had left the job and was following his carriage | C2 |
Why it took all the money Mark Hanna could raise | D2 |
To beat me with nothing but a pole | Z |
And a lithograph | E2 |
And it wasn't because he was one of the prophets | F2 |
Come back to earth again | P |
It shows how human hearts are hungry | H |
How wonderfully true they are | G2 |
And how they will rise and follow a man | H2 |
Who seems to see the truth | I2 |
Well these fellows who marched are the cocked hat | G |
And I am the cocked hat and the six millions | J2 |
And more are the cocked hat | G |
Who got themselves despised or suspected | J |
Of ignorance or something for being with him | K2 |
But still he's one of the pins that's standing | E |
He got the money that he went after | L |
And he has a place in history perhaps | M |
Because we took the blow and fell down | L2 |
When the ripping ball went wild on the alley | H |
- | |
- | |
- | |
For we were radicals | M2 |
And he wasn't a radical | R |
Eh Why a radical stands for freedom | N2 |
And for truth which he never finds | O2 |
But always looks for | O |
A radical is not a moralist | P2 |
A radical doesn't say | Q2 |
This is true and you must believe it | R2 |
This is good and you must accept it | R2 |
And if you don't believe it and accept it | R2 |
We'll get a law and make you | C |
And if you don't obey the law we'll kill you | C |
Oh no A radical stands for freedom | N2 |
- | |
- | |
- | |
Do you remember that banquet at the Tremont | F |
In ' on Jackson's day | Q2 |
Bryan and Altgeld walked together | L |
Out to the banquet room | S2 |
That's the time he said the bolters must | T2 |
Bring fruits meet for repentance ha ha Oh Gawd | T2 |
They never did it and they didn't have to | T2 |
For they had made friends of the mammon of unrighteousness | Q2 |
Even as he did a little later in his own way | Q2 |
Well Darrow was there that night | T2 |
I thought it was terribly raw in him | K2 |
But he said to Bryan there in a group | U2 |
You'd better go back to Lincoln and study | T2 |
Science history philosophy | T2 |
And read Flaubert's Madam something or other | L |
And quit this village religious stuff | V2 |
You're head of the party before you are ready | T2 |
And a leader should lead with thought | T2 |
And Bryan turned to the others and said | T2 |
Darrow's the only man in the world | T2 |
Who looks down on me for believing in God | T2 |
Your kind of a God snapped Darrow | W2 |
Honest Ed I didn't see this religious business | Q2 |
In Bryan in ' or | O |
Oh well I knew he went to Church | X2 |
And talked as statesmen do of God | T2 |
But McKinley did it and I used to laugh | E2 |
We've got a man to match McKinley | T2 |
And it's good for us in a squeeze like this | Q2 |
We didn't nominate some fellow | W2 |
Ethical culture or Unitarian | A |
You see the newspapers and preachers then | P |
Were raising such a hullabaloo | T2 |
About irreligion and dishonesty | T2 |
And calling old Altgeld an anarchist | T2 |
And comparing us to Robespierre | O |
And the guillotine boys in France | Q2 |
And a little of this religion came in handy | T2 |
The same as if you saw a Mason button on me | T2 |
You'd know you see but Gee | T2 |
He was carat religious | Q2 |
A cover to cover man | H2 |
He was a trained collie | T2 |
And he looked like a lion | A |
There in the convention of ' What do you know about that | T2 |
- | |
- | |
- | |
But right here I tell you he ain't a hypocrite | T2 |
This ain't a pose But I'll tell you | T2 |
In ' when they knocked him out | T2 |
I know what he said to himself as well | Y2 |
As if I heard him say it | T2 |
I'll tell you in a minute | T2 |
But suppose you were giving a lecture on the constitution | A |
And you got mixed on your dates | Q2 |
And the audience rotten egged you | T2 |
And some one in the confusion | A |
Stole the door receipts | Q2 |
And there you were disgraced and broke | Z2 |
But suppose you could just change your clothes | Q2 |
And lecture to the same audience | Q2 |
On the religious nature of Washington | A |
And be applauded and make money | T2 |
You'd do it wouldn't you | T2 |
Well this is what Bill said to himself | A3 |
I'm naturally regular and religious | Q2 |
I'm a moral man and I can prove it | T2 |
By any one in Marion County | T2 |
Or Jacksonville or Lincoln Nebraska | B3 |
I'm a radical but a radical | R |
Alone can be religious | Q2 |
I belong to the church if not to the bank | C3 |
Of the people who defeated me | T2 |
And I'll prove to religious people | R |
That I'm a man to be trusted | T2 |
And just what a radical is | Q2 |
And I'll make some money while winning the votes | Q2 |
Of the churches over the country | T2 |
- | |
That's it it ain't hypocrisy | T2 |
It's using what you are for ends | Q2 |
When you find yourself in trouble | R |
And this accounts for The Prince of Peace | Q2 |
Except no one but him could write it | T2 |
And The Value of an Ideal | S |
Which is money in bank and several farms | Q2 |
- | |
His place in history | T2 |
One time my grandfather who was nearly blind | T2 |
Went out to sow some grass seed | T2 |
They had two sacks in the barn | D3 |
One with grass seed one with fertilizer | O |
And he got the sack with fertilizer | O |
And scattered it over the ground | T2 |
Thinking he was sowing grass | Q2 |
And as he was finishing up a grandchild | T2 |
Dorothy eight years old | T2 |
Followed him dropping flower seeds | Q2 |
Well after a time | E3 |
That was the greatest patch of weeds | Q2 |
You ever saw And the old man sat | T2 |
Half blind on the porch and said | T2 |
Good land that grass is growing | E |
And there was nothing but weeds except | T2 |
A few nasturtiums here and there | O |
That Dorothy had sown | F3 |
Well I forgot | T2 |
There was a sunflower in one corner | O |
That looked like a man with a golden beard | T2 |
And a mass of tangled curly hair | O |
And a pumpkin growing near it | T2 |
- | |
- | |
- | |
Say Ed lend me eighty dollars | Q2 |
To pay my life insurance | Q2 |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Cocked Hat poem by Edgar Lee Masters
Best Poems of Edgar Lee Masters