Our Biggest Fish Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDD EEFFDD GGHHDD ICBJJDD KKLL DD MMFFDD| When in the halcyon days of old I was a little tyke | A |
| I used to fish in pickerel ponds for minnows and the like | A |
| And oh the bitter sadness with which my soul was fraught | B |
| When I rambled home at nightfall with the puny string I'd caught | C |
| And oh the indignation and the valor I'd display | D |
| When I claimed that all the biggest fish I'd caught had got away | D |
| - | |
| Sometimes it was the rusty hooks sometimes the fragile lines | E |
| And many times the treacherous reeds would foil my just designs | E |
| But whether hooks or lines or reeds were actually to blame | F |
| I kept right on at losing all the monsters just the same | F |
| I never lost a little fish yes I am free to say | D |
| It always was the biggest fish I caught that got away | D |
| - | |
| And so it was when later on I felt ambition pass | G |
| From callow minnow joys to nobler greed for pike and bass | G |
| I found it quite convenient when the beauties wouldn't bite | H |
| And I returned all bootless from the watery chase at night | H |
| To feign a cheery aspect and recount in accents gay | D |
| How the biggest fish that I had caught had somehow got away | D |
| - | |
| And really fish look bigger than they are before they are before they're | I |
| caught | C |
| When the pole is bent into a bow and the slender line is taut | B |
| When a fellow feels his heart rise up like a doughnut in his throat | J |
| And he lunges in a frenzy up and down the leaky boat | J |
| Oh you who've been a fishing will indorse me when I say | D |
| That it always is the biggest fish you catch that gets away | D |
| - | |
| 'T 'is even so in other things yes in our greedy eyes | K |
| The biggest boon is some elusive never captured prize | K |
| We angle for the honors and the sweets of human life | L |
| Like fishermen we brave the seas that roll in endless strife | L |
| - | |
| And then at last when all is done and we are spent and gray | D |
| We own the biggest fish we've caught are those that got away | D |
| - | |
| I would not have it otherwise 't is better there should be | M |
| Much bigger fish than I have caught a swimming in the sea | M |
| For now some worthier one than I may angle for that game | F |
| May by his arts entice entrap and comprehend the same | F |
| Which having done perchance he'll bless the man who's proud to say | D |
| That the biggest fish he ever caught were those that got away | D |
Eugene Field
(1)
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