Very Like A Whale Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACDEFFGHIBJJKFLFJM NMMOPOMQRQJSMHSMRRTU HNUNN| One thing that literature would be greatly the better for | A |
| Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and | B |
| metaphor | A |
| Authors of all races be they Greeks Romans Teutons or Celts | C |
| Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to | D |
| go out of their way to say that it is like something else | E |
| What does it mean when we are told | F |
| That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold | F |
| In the first place George Gordon Byron had enough experience | G |
| To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian it was a lot of | H |
| Assyrians | I |
| However as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and | B |
| thus hinder longevity | J |
| We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity | J |
| Now then this particular Assyrian the one whose cohorts were | K |
| gleaming in purple and gold | F |
| Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a | L |
| wold on the fold | F |
| In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy | J |
| there are great many things | M |
| But I don't imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple | N |
| and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings | M |
| No no Lord Byron before I'll believe that this Assyrian was | M |
| actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof | O |
| Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red | P |
| mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof | O |
| Frankly I think it is very unlikely and all you were entitled to say | M |
| at the very most | Q |
| Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian | R |
| cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host | Q |
| But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron oh dear me no he | J |
| had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them | S |
| With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers | M |
| to people they say Oh yes they're the ones that a lot of | H |
| wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them | S |
| That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets | M |
| from Homer to Tennyson | R |
| They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison | R |
| And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket | T |
| after a winter storm | U |
| Oh it is is it all right then you sleep under a six inch blanket of | H |
| snow and I'll sleep under a half inch blanket of unpoetical | N |
| blanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm | U |
| And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly | N |
| What I mean by too much metaphor and simile | N |
Ogden Nash
(1)
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