At The Feast Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABA CCDC EEFE GG DDHD IIJI KKLK MMNM BLBEVOLVING changing onwards still we press | A |
We must advance invent construct possess | A |
No matter what a price we have to pay | B |
We must obtain perfection and no less | A |
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Perfection in our luxuries the hours | C |
Fulfilled of sweetness must be slaves of ours | C |
Our air be rich with music and soft light | D |
And all our halls be odorous with flowers | C |
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How our least want may best be satisfied | E |
How not a pleasure may be left untried | E |
How to appease each longing and desire | F |
This we have learned and something else beside | E |
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Yes we have learned to know and not to shrink | G |
From knowing to what depths our brothers sink | G |
And we have learned the lesson 'not to feel ' | - |
And we have learned the lesson 'not to think ' | - |
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We must have learned it otherwise to night | D |
When sped by wine and feasting time takes flight | D |
When perfect music searches for our soul | H |
And all these flowers unfold for our delight | D |
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We should not hear the music but instead | I |
Hear that wild bitter heart sick cry for bread | I |
And in the lamps that light our lavish feast | J |
Should see but tapers burning for the dead | I |
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We should not see the myriad blossoms waste | K |
The bloom of them would be thrust back displaced | K |
By the white faces of the starving children | L |
Wasted and wan who might have been flower faced | K |
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Oh not to think To think and not to care | M |
Oh woman hearts still do these flowers seem fair | M |
Can music drown the little piteous voices | N |
Can you not see the little faces there | M |
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For 'faring sumptuously every day ' | - |
For raiment soft and music on our way | B |
We give the tortured lives of little children | L |
For such a purchase what a price to pay | B |
Edith Nesbit
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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