The World-saver Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJKJ LMLM NONO GPGP KQKQ ARAR STST EUEU VWVW X YZA2B2C2D2E2F2C2G2H2 F2I2J2K2K2J2AL2M2N2U O2P2UQ2OR2AWS2T2U2V2 V2W2X2X2B2J2C2 C2Y2Z2G2A3C2AB3J2RC3 D3E3O2F3L2G3B2H3I3J3 IG3C2J2UEJK3XL3IM3N3 LAO3O3P3Q3R3 S3UT3B2B2C2I3UU3OB2B 2K2FO2L2LV3W3X3H3 B2AUY3C2Z3A4AC2J2J2B 4GS2FJ2P2Q2WLC4YAN3 RD4XE4AGC2A2J2C2F4A4 L3G4G4H4C2I4J4C2K4G4 G4L4G4Y3B2D4K4G3 G4G4C2T2G4M4YN4W2AG4 G4J2PB2J2YJ2O4G4P4C2 YG4G4G4G4G4YG4J2PC2G 4B2K4K2O4G4YQ4C2C2G4 G4G4N2R4S4R4Z2YWB2T4 B2U4G4 V4UW4G4If the grim Fates to stave ennui | A |
Play whips for fun or snares for game | B |
The liar full of ease goes free | A |
And Socrates must bear the shame | B |
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With the blunt sage he stands despised | C |
The Pharisees salute him not | D |
Laughter awaits the truth he prized | C |
And Judas profits by his plot | D |
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A million angels kneel and pray | E |
And sue for grace that he may win | F |
Eternal Jove prepares the day | E |
And sternly sets the fateful gin | F |
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Satan who hates the light is fain | G |
To back his virtuous enterprise | H |
The omnipotent powers alone refrain | G |
Only the Lord of hosts denies | H |
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Whatever of woven argument | I |
Lacks warp to hold the woof in place | J |
Smothers his honest discontent | K |
But leaves to view his woeful face | J |
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Fling forth the flag devour the land | L |
Grasp destiny and use the law | M |
But dodge the epigram's keen brand | L |
And fall not by the ass's jaw | M |
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The idiot snicker strikes more down | N |
Than fell at Troy or Waterloo | O |
Still still he meets it with a frown | N |
And argues loudly for the True | O |
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Injustice lengthens out her chain | G |
Greed yet ahungered calls for more | P |
But while the eons wax and wane | G |
He storms the barricaded door | P |
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Wisdom and peace and fair intent | K |
Are tedious as a tale twice told | Q |
One thing increases being spent | K |
Perennial youth belongs to gold | Q |
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At Weehawken the soul set free | A |
Rules the high realm of Bunker Hill | R |
Drink life from that philosophy | A |
And flourish by the age's will | R |
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If he shall toil to clear the field | S |
Fate's children seize the prosperous year | T |
Boldly he fashions some new shield | S |
And naked feels the victor's spear | T |
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He rolls the world up into day | E |
He finds the grain and gets the hull | U |
He sees his own mind in the sway | E |
And Progress tiptoes on his skull | U |
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Angels and fiends behold the wrong | V |
And execrate his losing fight | W |
While Jove amidst the choral song | V |
Smiles and the heavens glow with light | W |
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Trueblood | X |
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Trueblood is bewitched to write a drama | Y |
Only one drama then to die Enough | Z |
To win the heights but once He writes me letters | A2 |
These later days marked Opened by the Censor | B2 |
About his drama asks me what I think | C2 |
About this point of view and that approach | D2 |
And whether to etch in his hero's soul | E2 |
By etching in his hero's enemies | F2 |
Or luminate his hero by enshadowing | C2 |
His hero's enemies How shall I tell him | G2 |
Which is the actual and the larger theme | H2 |
His hero or his hero's enemies | F2 |
And through it all I see that Trueblood's mind | I2 |
Runs to the under dog the fallen Titan | J2 |
The god misunderstood the lover of man | K2 |
Destroyed by heaven for his love of man | K2 |
In July while in London | J2 |
He took me to his house to dine and showed me | A |
The verses as above And while I read | L2 |
He left the room returned I heard him move | M2 |
The ash trays on the table where we sat | N2 |
And set some object on the table | U |
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Then | O2 |
As I looked up from reading I discovered | P2 |
A skull and bony hand upon the table | U |
And Trueblood said Look at the loft brow | Q2 |
And what a hand was this A right hand too | O |
Those fingers in the flesh did miracles | R2 |
And when I have my hero's skull before me | A |
His hand that moulded peoples I should write | W |
The drama that possesses all my thought | S2 |
You'd think the spirit of the man would come | T2 |
And show me how to find the key that fits | U2 |
The story of his life reveal its secret | V2 |
I know the secrets but I want the secret | V2 |
You'd think his spirit out of gratitude | W2 |
Would start me off It's something I insist | X2 |
To find a haven with a dramatist | X2 |
After your bones have crossed the sea and after | B2 |
Passing from hand to hand they reach seclusion | J2 |
And reverent housing | C2 |
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Dying in New York | C2 |
He lay for ten years in a lonely grave | Y2 |
Somewhere along the Hudson I believe | Z2 |
No grave yard in the city would receive him | G2 |
Neither a banker nor a friend of banks | A3 |
Nor falling in a duel to awake | C2 |
Indignant sorrow space in Trinity | A |
Was not so much as offered He was poor | B3 |
And never had a tomb like Washington | J2 |
Of course he wasn't Washington but still | R |
Study that skull a little In ten years | C3 |
A mad admirer living here in England | D3 |
Went to America and dug him up | E3 |
And brought his bones to Liverpool Just then | O2 |
Our country was in turmoil over France | F3 |
The details are so rich I lose my head | L2 |
And can't construct my acts hell's flaming here | G3 |
And we are fighting back the roaring fire | B2 |
That France had lighted England would abort | H3 |
The era she embraced Here is a point | I3 |
That vexes me in laying out the scenes | J3 |
And persons of the play For parliament | I |
Went into fury that these bones were here | G3 |
On British soil The city raged They took | C2 |
The poor town crier gave him nine months' prison | J2 |
For crying on the streets the bones' arrival | U |
I'd like to put that crier in my play | E |
The scene of his arrest would thrill in case | J |
I put it on a background understood | K3 |
And showing why the fellow was arrested | X |
And what a high offence to heaven it was | L3 |
Then here's another thing The monument | I |
This zealous friend had planned was never raised | M3 |
The city wouldn't have it you can guess | N3 |
The brain that filled this skull and moved this hand | L |
Had given England trouble Yes believe me | A |
He roused rebellion and he scattered pamphlets | O3 |
He had the English gift of writing pamphlets | O3 |
He stirred up peoples with his English gift | P3 |
Against the mother country How to show this | Q3 |
In action not in talk is difficult | R3 |
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Well then here is our friend who has these bones | S3 |
And cannot honor them in burial | U |
And so he keeps them then becomes a bankrupt | T3 |
And look the bones pass to our friend's receiver | B2 |
Are they an asset Our Lord Chancellor | B2 |
Does not regard them so I'd like to work | C2 |
Some humor in my drama at this point | I3 |
And satirize his lordship just a little | U |
Though you can scarcely call a skull an asset | U3 |
If it be of a man who helped to cost you | O |
The loss of half the world So the receiver | B2 |
Cast out the bones and for a time a laborer | B2 |
Took care of them He sold them to a man | K2 |
Who dealt in furniture The empty coffin | F |
About this time turned up in Guilford then | O2 |
It's the man is dead | L2 |
Near forty years when just the skull and hand | L |
Are owned by Rev Ainslie who evades | V3 |
All questions touching on that ownership | W3 |
And where the ribs spine arms and thigh bones are | X3 |
The rest in short | H3 |
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And as for me no matter | B2 |
Who sold them gave them to me loaned them to me | A |
Behold the good right hand behold the skull | U |
Of Thomas Paine theo philanthropist | Y3 |
Of Quaker parents born in England Look | C2 |
That is the hand that wrote the Crisis wrote | Z3 |
The Age of Reason Common Sense and rallied | A4 |
Americans against the mother country | A |
With just that English gift of pamphleteering | C2 |
You see I'd have to bring George Washington | J2 |
And James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson | J2 |
Upon the stage and put into their mouths | B4 |
The eulogies they spoke on Thomas Paine | G |
To get before the audience that they thought | S2 |
He did as much as any man to win | F |
Your independence that your Declaration | J2 |
Was founded on his writings even inspired | P2 |
A clause against your negro slavery how | Q2 |
Look at this hand he was the first to write | W |
United States of America there's the hand | L |
That was the first to write those words Good Lord | C4 |
This drama would out last a Chinese drama | Y |
If I put all the story in But tell me | A |
What to omit and what to stress | N3 |
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And still | R |
I'd have the greatest drama in the world | D4 |
If I could prove he was dishonored hunted | X |
Neglected libeled buried like a beast | E4 |
His bones dug up thrown in and out of Chancery | A |
And show these horrors overtook Tom Paine | G |
Because he was too great and by this showing | C2 |
Instruct the world to honor its torch bearers | A2 |
For time to come No Well that can't be done | J2 |
I know that but it puzzles me to think | C2 |
That Hamilton we'll say is so revered | F4 |
So lauded toasted all his papers studied | A4 |
On tariffs and on banks evoking ahs | L3 |
Great genius and so forth and there's the Crisis | G4 |
And Common Sense which only little Shelleys | G4 |
Haunting the dusty book shops read at all | H4 |
It wasn't that he liked his rum and drank | C2 |
Too much at times or chased a pretty skirt | I4 |
For Hamilton did that Paine never mixed | J4 |
In money matters to another's wrong | C2 |
For his sake or a system's Yes I know | K4 |
The world cares more for chastity and temperance | G4 |
Than for a faultless life in money matters | G4 |
No use to dramatize that vital contrast | L4 |
The world to day is what it always was | G4 |
But you don't call this Hamilton an artist | Y3 |
And Paine a mere logician and a wrangler | B2 |
Your artist soul gets limed in this mad world | D4 |
As much as any There is Leonardo | K4 |
The point's not here | G3 |
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I think it's more like this | G4 |
Some men are Titans and some men are gods | G4 |
And some are gods who fall while climbing back | C2 |
Up to Olympus whence they came And some | T2 |
While fighting for the race fall into holes | G4 |
Where to return and rescue them is death | M4 |
Why look you here You'd think America | Y |
Had gone to war to cheat the guillotine | N4 |
Of Thomas Paine in fiery gratitude | W2 |
He's there in France's national assembly | A |
And votes to save King Louis with this phrase | G4 |
Don't kill the man but kill the kingly office | G4 |
They think him faithless to the revolution | J2 |
For words like these and clap the prison door | P |
Shuts on our Thomas So he writes a letter | B2 |
To president of what to Washington | J2 |
President of the United States of America | Y |
A title which Paine coined in seventy seven | J2 |
Now lettered on a monstrous seal of state | O4 |
And Washington is silent never answers | G4 |
And leaves our Thomas shivering in a cell | P4 |
Who hears the guillotine go slash and click | C2 |
Perhaps this is the nucleus of my drama | Y |
Or else to show that Washington was wise | G4 |
Respecting England's hatred of our Thomas | G4 |
And wise to lift no finger to save Thomas | G4 |
Incurring England's wrath who hated Thomas | G4 |
For pamphlets like the Crisis Common Sense | G4 |
That may be just the story for my drama | Y |
Old Homer satirized the human race | G4 |
For warring for the rescue of a Cyprian | J2 |
But there's not stuff for satire in a war | P |
Ensuing on the insult for the rescue | C2 |
Of nothing but a fellow who wrote pamphlets | G4 |
And won a continent for the rescuer | B2 |
That's tragedy the more so if the fellow | K4 |
Likes rum and writes that Jesus was a man | K2 |
This crushing of poor Thomas in the hate | O4 |
Of England and her power America's | G4 |
Great fear and lowered strength might make a drama | Y |
As showing how the more you do in life | Q4 |
The greater shall you suffer This is true | C2 |
If what you battered down gets hold of you | C2 |
This drama almost drives me mad at times | G4 |
I have his story at my fingers' ends | G4 |
But it won't take a shape It flies my hands | G4 |
I think I'll have to give it up What's that | N2 |
Well if an audience of to day would turn | R4 |
From seeing Thomas Paine upon the stage | S4 |
What is the use to write it if they'd turn | R4 |
No matter how you wrote it I believe | Z2 |
They wouldn't like it in America | Y |
Nor England either maybe you are right | W |
A drama with no audience is a failure | B2 |
But here's this skull What shall I do with it | T4 |
If I should have it cased in solid silver | B2 |
There is no shrine to take it no Cologne | U4 |
For skulls like this | G4 |
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Well I must die sometime | V4 |
And who will get it then Look at this skull | U |
This bony hand Then look at me my friend | W4 |
A man who has a theme the world despises | G4 |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
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