Miser And Plutus Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJ KLE EIIMMNNOOPOQQRRFFSS| The wind was high the window shook | A |
| The miser woke with haggard look | A |
| He stalked along the silent room | B |
| He shivered at the gleam and gloom | B |
| Each lock and every corner eyed | C |
| And then he stood his chest beside | C |
| He opened it and stood in rapture | D |
| In sight of gold he held in capture | D |
| And then with sudden qualm possessed | E |
| He wrung his hands and beat his breast | E |
| O had the earth concealed this gold | F |
| I had perhaps in peace grown old | F |
| But there is neither gold nor price | G |
| To recompense the pang of vice | G |
| Bane of all good delusive cheat | H |
| To lure a soul on to defeat | H |
| And banish honour from the mind | I |
| Gold raised the sword midst kith and kind | I |
| Gold fosters each pernicious art | J |
| In which the devils bear a part | J |
| Gold bane accursed In angry mood | K |
| Plutus his god before him stood | L |
| The trembling miser slammed the chest | E |
| - | |
| What rant and cant have you expressed | E |
| Yon sordid wretch It is the mind | I |
| And not the gold corrupts mankind | I |
| Shall my best medium be accused | M |
| Because its virtues are abused | M |
| Virtue and gold alike betrayed | N |
| When knaves demand a cloak to trade | N |
| So likewise power in their possession | O |
| Grows into tyrannous oppression | O |
| And in like manner gold may be | P |
| Abused to vice and villany | O |
| But when it flows in virtue's streams | Q |
| It blesses like the sun's blest beams | Q |
| Wiping the tears from widowed eyes | R |
| And soothing bereft orphans' cries | R |
| Speak not of misers who have sold | F |
| Their soul's integrity for gold | F |
| Than bravoes and than cut throats worse | S |
| Who in their calling steal a purse | S |
John Gay
(1)
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