The Modern Manichee Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBBDBD BEFEGHIH BJBJBKLK BMIMFNFN LLBLOPBP| He sayeth there is no sin and all his sin | A |
| Swells round him into a world made merciless | B |
| The midnight of his universe of shame | C |
| Is the vast shadow of his shamelessness | B |
| He blames all that begat him gods or brutes | B |
| And sires not sons he chides as with a rod | D |
| The sins of the children visited on the fathers | B |
| Through all generations back to a jealous God | D |
| - | |
| The fields that heal the humble the happy forests | B |
| That sing to men confessed and men consoled | E |
| To him are jungles only greedy and groping | F |
| Heartlessly new unvenerably old | E |
| Beyond the pride of his own cold compassion | G |
| Is only cruelty and imputed pain | H |
| Matched with that mood a boy's sport in the forest | I |
| Makes comrades of the slayer and the slain | H |
| - | |
| The innocent lust of the unfallen creatures | B |
| Moves him to hidden horror but no mirth | J |
| Misplaced morality rots in the roots unconscious | B |
| His stifled conscience stinks through the green earth | J |
| The green things thrust like horrible huge snails | B |
| Horns green and gross each lifting a leering eye | K |
| He scarce can call a flower it lolls obscene | L |
| Its organs gaping to the sneering sky | K |
| - | |
| Dark with that dusk the old red god of gardens | B |
| Still pagan but not merry any more | M |
| Stirs up the dull adulteries of the dust | I |
| Blind frustrate hopeless hollow at the core | M |
| The plants are brutes tied with green rope and roaring | F |
| Their terrible dark loves from tree to tree | N |
| He shrinks as from a shaft if by him singing | F |
| A gilded pimp and pandar goes the bee | N |
| - | |
| He sayeth 'I have no sin I cast the stone' | L |
| And throws his little pebble at the shrine | L |
| Casts sin and stone away against the house | B |
| Whose health has turned earth's waters into wine | L |
| The venom of that repudiated guilt | O |
| Poisons the sea and every natural flood | P |
| As once a wavering tyrant washed his hands | B |
| And touching turned the water black with blood | P |
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
(1)
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About The Modern Manichee
The Modern Manichee is a poem by Gilbert Keith Chesterton. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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