Latter-day Warnings Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAC DEDE FGFG HIJI KLKL MNMN OPOP QRQR STST| WHEN legislators keep the law | A |
| When banks dispense with bolts and looks | B |
| When berries whortle rasp and straw | A |
| Grow bigger downwards through the box | C |
| - | |
| When he that selleth house or land | D |
| Shows leak in roof or flaw in right | E |
| When haberdashers choose the stand | D |
| Whose window hath the broadest light | E |
| - | |
| When preachers tell us all they think | F |
| And party leaders all they mean | G |
| When what we pay for that we drink | F |
| From real grape and coffee bean | G |
| - | |
| When lawyers take what they would give | H |
| And doctors give what they would take | I |
| When city fathers eat to live | J |
| Save when they fast for conscience' sake | I |
| - | |
| When one that hath a horse on sale | K |
| Shall bring his merit to the proof | L |
| Without a lie for every nail | K |
| That holds the iron on the hoof | L |
| - | |
| When in the usual place for rips | M |
| Our gloves are stitched with special care | N |
| And guarded well the whalebone tips | M |
| Where first umbrellas need repair | N |
| - | |
| When Cuba's weeds have quite forgot | O |
| The power of suction to resist | P |
| And claret bottles harbor not | O |
| Such dimples as would hold your fist | P |
| - | |
| When publishers no longer steal | Q |
| And pay for what they stole before | R |
| When the first locomotive's wheel | Q |
| Rolls through the Hoosac Tunnel's bore | R |
| - | |
| Till then let Cumming blaze away | S |
| And Miller's saints blow up the globe | T |
| But when you see that blessed day | S |
| Then order your ascension robe | T |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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