The Bat, The Bush, And The Duck Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCCDDEEFGHHIIJJJJKK LLMMNOONPPQQRRSS TTUU| A | |
| - | |
| A bush duck and bat having found that in trade | B |
| Confined to their country small profits were made | B |
| Into partnership enter'd to traffic abroad | C |
| Their purse held in common well guarded from fraud | C |
| Their factors and agents these trading allies | D |
| Employ'd where they needed as cautious as wise | D |
| Their journals and ledgers exact and discreet | E |
| Recorded by items expense and receipt | E |
| All throve till an argosy on its way home | F |
| With a cargo worth more than their capital sum | G |
| In attempting to pass through a dangerous strait | H |
| Went down with its passengers sailors and freight | H |
| To enrich those enormous and miserly stores | I |
| From Tartarus distant but very few doors | I |
| Regret was a thing which the firm could but feel | J |
| Regret was the thing they were slow to reveal | J |
| For the least of a merchant well knows that the weal | J |
| Of his credit requires him his loss to conceal | J |
| But that which our trio unluckily suffer'd | K |
| Allow'd no repair and of course was discover'd | K |
| No money nor credit 'twas plain to be seen | L |
| Their heads were now threaten'd with bonnets of green | L |
| And the facts of the case being everywhere known | M |
| No mortal would open his purse with a loan | M |
| Debts bailiffs and lawsuits and creditors gruff | N |
| At the crack of day knocking | O |
| Importunity shocking | O |
| Our trio kept busy enough | N |
| The bush ever ready and on the alert | P |
| Now caught all the people it could by the skirt | P |
| 'Pray sir be so good as to tell if you please | Q |
| If you know whereabout the old villanous seas | Q |
| Have hid all our goods which they stole t' other night | R |
| The diver to seek them went down out of sight | R |
| The bat didn't venture abroad in the day | S |
| And thus of the bailiffs kept out of the way | S |
| - | |
| Full many insolvents not bats to hide so | T |
| Nor bushes nor divers I happen to know | T |
| But even grand seigniors quite free from all cares | U |
| By virtue of brass and of private backstairs | U |
Jean De La Fontaine
(1)
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