Verses For After-dinner Phi Beta Kappa Society, 1844 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDD EEFF GGHH IJKK LLMM NCOO PPQQ RRSS TTUV WWXX YZA2A2 B2B2C2C2 D2D2E2E2 F2F2G2G2| I was thinking last night as I sat in the cars | A |
| With the charmingest prospect of cinders and stars | A |
| Next Thursday is bless me how hard it will be | B |
| If that cannibal president calls upon me | B |
| - | |
| There is nothing on earth that he will not devour | C |
| From a tutor in seed to a freshman in flower | C |
| No sage is too gray and no youth is too green | D |
| And you can't be too plump though you're never too lean | D |
| - | |
| While others enlarge on the boiled and the roast | E |
| He serves a raw clergyman up with a toast | E |
| Or catches some doctor quite tender and young | F |
| And basely insists on a bit of his tongue | F |
| - | |
| Poor victim prepared for his classical spit | G |
| With a stuffing of praise and a basting of wit | G |
| You may twitch at your collar and wrinkle your brow | H |
| But you're up on your legs and you're in for it now | H |
| - | |
| Oh think of your friends they are waiting to hear | I |
| Those jokes that are thought so remarkably queer | J |
| And all the Jack Horners of metrical buns | K |
| Are prying and fingering to pick out the puns | K |
| - | |
| Those thoughts which like chickens will always thrive best | L |
| When reared by the heat of the natural nest | L |
| Will perish if hatched from their embryo dream | M |
| In the mist and the glow of convivial steam | M |
| - | |
| Oh pardon me then if I meekly retire | N |
| With a very small flash of ethereal fire | C |
| No rubbing will kindle your Lucifer match | O |
| If the fiz does not follow the primitive scratch | O |
| - | |
| Dear friends who are listening so sweetly the while | P |
| With your lips double reefed in a snug little smile | P |
| I leave you two fables both drawn from the deep | Q |
| The shells you can drop but the pearls you may keep | Q |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| The fish called the FLOUNDER perhaps you may know | R |
| Has one side for use and another for show | R |
| One side for the public a delicate brown | S |
| And one that is white which he always keeps down | S |
| - | |
| A very young flounder the flattest of flats | T |
| And they 're none of them thicker than opera hats | T |
| Was speaking more freely than charity taught | U |
| Of a friend and relation that just had been caught | V |
| - | |
| My what an exposure just see what a sight | W |
| I blush for my race he is showing his white | W |
| Such spinning and wriggling why what does he wish | X |
| How painfully small to respectable fish | X |
| - | |
| Then said an Old SCULPIN My freedom excuse | Y |
| You're playing the cobbler with holes in your shoes | Z |
| Your brown side is up but just wait till you're tried | A2 |
| And you'll find that all flounders are white on one side | A2 |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| There's a slice near the PICKEREL'S pectoral fins | B2 |
| Where the thorax leaves off and the venter begins | B2 |
| Which his brother survivor of fish hooks and lines | C2 |
| Though fond of his family never declines | C2 |
| - | |
| He loves his relations he feels they'll be missed | D2 |
| But that one little tidbit he cannot resist | D2 |
| So your bait may be swallowed no matter how fast | E2 |
| For you catch your next fish with a piece of the last | E2 |
| - | |
| And thus O survivor whose merciless fate | F2 |
| Is to take the next hook with the president's bait | F2 |
| You are lost while you snatch from the end of his line | G2 |
| The morsel he rent from this bosom of mine | G2 |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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