The Gang Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCC DEDEFF GHGHII JAJAKK ALALFF ADADMM NKNKGG FOFOPQ| Our fathers must have sinned we pay for it | A |
| Through them the base born tribe that sold their king | B |
| Sneaked into power and in high places sit | A |
| And do their will and wish in everything | B |
| For they may rob and kill grieve and disgrace | C |
| All who are left alive of Eiver's race | C |
| - | |
| They seized with daring guile on rank and pelf | D |
| And swore that they would never bend a knee | E |
| Unto the king they robbed the Church herself | D |
| They stole our princes' lands and o'er the sea | E |
| They packed those princes or drove them away | F |
| To barren rocks and fields that have no clay | F |
| - | |
| That spawn of base mechanics who could ne'er | G |
| Though Doomsday came by any art be made | H |
| Noble are noble now and have no care | G |
| Snugly they sit and safe and unafraid | H |
| In stately places proud as if the mud | I |
| And slime that swills their veins were princes' blood | I |
| - | |
| Let us be wise and wary of that gang | J |
| When they seem friendly know they have much wit | A |
| And if it come that any man shall hang | J |
| This neck will go unchoked that nose unslit | A |
| For be things wry and crooked and to guess | K |
| Those twisters are at home in twistiness | K |
| - | |
| We know now what their plottings were about | A |
| And how they planned and what they meant to win | L |
| 'Twas God not us that took their tangles out | A |
| For no sleek eel inside an oily skin | L |
| Could slip with more address from harm than they | F |
| Can slip from punishment and get away | F |
| - | |
| When trouble came it was their plan to get | A |
| Our friends into the boat they meant to leave | D |
| And there was some one left to pay their debt | A |
| And they were free again to lie and thieve | D |
| So they could put the feet of the man they'd rob | M |
| Into the boots of the one that did the job | M |
| - | |
| If burnt child does truly dread the flame | N |
| If wounded soldier shrinks again to see | K |
| A steel point sloping to him let the same | N |
| Experience teach our chiefs that they may be | K |
| Crafty in meeting craft and may beware | G |
| Of brewer's bees and buzzers everywhere | G |
| - | |
| Unto the Mind which pardons sin I pray | F |
| I pray to Him who did permit our woe | O |
| But halted our destruction that to day | F |
| Kindness and love and trust and inward glow | O |
| Of vision light our hearts with light divine | P |
| So that we know our way until the end of time | Q |
James Stephens
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Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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