Ben Apfelgarten Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCCCDDD ECECFFFGGG CHCHFFFIII JKLKMMMAAA CACAEEE| There was a certain gentleman Ben Apfelgarten called | A |
| Who lived way off in Germany a many years ago | B |
| And he was very fortunate in being very bald | A |
| And so was very happy he was so | B |
| He warbled all the day | C |
| Such songs as only they | C |
| Who are very very circumspect and very happy may | C |
| The people wondered why | D |
| As the years went gliding by | D |
| They never heard him once complain or even heave a sigh | D |
| - | |
| The women of the province fell in love with genial Ben | E |
| Till may be you can fancy it the dickens was to pay | C |
| Among the callow students and the sober minded men | E |
| With the women folk a cuttin' up that way | C |
| Why they gave him turbans red | F |
| To adorn his hairless head | F |
| And knitted jaunty nightcaps to protect him when abed | F |
| In vain the rest demurred | G |
| Not a single chiding word | G |
| Those ladies deigned to tolerate remonstrance was absurd | G |
| - | |
| Things finally got into such a very dreadful way | C |
| That the others oh how artful formed the politic design | H |
| To send him to the reichstag so one dull November day | C |
| They elected him a member from the Rhine | H |
| Then the other members said | F |
| Gott im Himmel what a head | F |
| But they marvelled when his speeches they listened to or read | F |
| And presently they cried | I |
| There must be heaps inside | I |
| Of the smooth and shiny cranium his constituents deride | I |
| - | |
| Well when at last he up 'nd died long past his ninetieth year | J |
| The strangest and the most lugubrious funeral he had | K |
| For women came in multitudes to weep upon his bier | L |
| The men all wond'ring why on earth the women had gone mad | K |
| And this wonderment increased | M |
| Till the sympathetic priest | M |
| Inquired of those same ladies Why this fuss about deceased | M |
| Whereupon were they appalled | A |
| For as one those women squalled | A |
| We doted on deceased for being bald bald bald | A |
| - | |
| He was bald because his genius burnt that shock of hair away | C |
| Which elsewise clogs one's keenness and activity of mind | A |
| And barring present company of course I'm free to say | C |
| That after all it's intellect that captures womankind | A |
| At any rate since then | E |
| With a precedent in Ben | E |
| The women folk have been in love with us bald headed men | E |
Eugene Field
(1)
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