The Run Upon The Bankers[1] Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ KLKL MNMN NNNN OPOP NQNQ RSRS NNNN NTNT UVUV TNTN WRWR| The bold encroachers on the deep | A |
| Gain by degrees huge tracts of land | B |
| Till Neptune with one general sweep | A |
| Turns all again to barren strand | B |
| - | |
| The multitude's capricious pranks | C |
| Are said to represent the seas | D |
| Breaking the bankers and the banks | C |
| Resume their own whene'er they please | D |
| - | |
| Money the life blood of the nation | E |
| Corrupts and stagnates in the veins | F |
| Unless a proper circulation | E |
| Its motion and its heat maintains | F |
| - | |
| Because 'tis lordly not to pay | G |
| Quakers and aldermen in state | H |
| Like peers have levees every day | G |
| Of duns attending at their gate | H |
| - | |
| We want our money on the nail | I |
| The banker's ruin'd if he pays | J |
| They seem to act an ancient tale | I |
| The birds are met to strip the jays | J |
| - | |
| Riches the wisest monarch sings | K |
| Make pinions for themselves to fly | L |
| They fly like bats on parchment wings | K |
| And geese their silver plumes supply | L |
| - | |
| No money left for squandering heirs | M |
| Bills turn the lenders into debtors | N |
| The wish of Nero now is theirs | M |
| That they had never known their letters | N |
| - | |
| Conceive the works of midnight hags | N |
| Tormenting fools behind their backs | N |
| Thus bankers o'er their bills and bags | N |
| Sit squeezing images of wax | N |
| - | |
| Conceive the whole enchantment broke | O |
| The witches left in open air | P |
| With power no more than other folk | O |
| Exposed with all their magic ware | P |
| - | |
| So powerful are a banker's bills | N |
| Where creditors demand their due | Q |
| They break up counters doors and tills | N |
| And leave the empty chests in view | Q |
| - | |
| Thus when an earthquake lets in light | R |
| Upon the god of gold and hell | S |
| Unable to endure the sight | R |
| He hides within his darkest cell | S |
| - | |
| As when a conjurer takes a lease | N |
| From Satan for a term of years | N |
| The tenant's in a dismal case | N |
| Whene'er the bloody bond appears | N |
| - | |
| A baited banker thus desponds | N |
| From his own hand foresees his fall | T |
| They have his soul who have his bonds | N |
| 'Tis like the writing on the wall | T |
| - | |
| How will the caitiff wretch be scared | U |
| When first he finds himself awake | V |
| At the last trumpet unprepared | U |
| And all his grand account to make | V |
| - | |
| For in that universal call | T |
| Few bankers will to heaven be mounters | N |
| They'll cry Ye shops upon us fall | T |
| Conceal and cover us ye counters | N |
| - | |
| When other hands the scales shall hold | W |
| And they in men's and angels' sight | R |
| Produced with all their bills and gold | W |
| Weigh'd in the balance and found light | R |
Jonathan Swift
(1)
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