A Legend Of Truth Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCDEEFFGG HHIIJJ KKLLBBMMB GGAABBGBBB NOPPGB| Once on a time the ancient legends tell | A |
| Truth rising from the bottom of her well | A |
| Looked on the world but hearing how it lied | B |
| Returned to her seclusion horrified | B |
| There she abode so conscious of her worth | C |
| Not even Pilate's Question called her forth | D |
| Nor Galileo kneeling to deny | E |
| The Laws that hold our Planet 'neath the sky | E |
| Meantime her kindlier sister whom men call | F |
| Fiction did all her work and more than all | F |
| With so much zeal devotion tact and care | G |
| That no one noticed Truth was otherwhere | G |
| - | |
| Then came a War when bombed and gassed and mined | H |
| Truth rose once more perforce to meet mankind | H |
| And through the dust and glare and wreck of things | I |
| Beheld a phantom on unbalanced wings | I |
| Reeling and groping dazed dishevelled dumb | J |
| But semaphoring direr deeds to come | J |
| - | |
| Truth hailed and bade her stand the quavering shade | K |
| Clung to her knees and babbled quot Sister aid | K |
| I am I was thy Deputy and men | L |
| Besought me for my useful tongue or pen | L |
| To gloss their gentle deeds and I complied | B |
| And they and thy demands were satisfied | B |
| But this quot she pointed o'er the blistered plain | M |
| Where men as Gods and devils wrought amain | M |
| quot This is beyond me Take thy work again quot | B |
| - | |
| Tablets and pen transferred she fled afar | G |
| And Truth assumed the record of the War | G |
| She saw she heard she read she tried to tell | A |
| Facts beyond precedent and parallel | A |
| Unfit to hint or breathe much less to write | B |
| But happening every minute day and night | B |
| She called for proof It came The dossiers grew | G |
| She marked them first quot Return This can't be true quot | B |
| Then underneath the cold official word | B |
| quot This is not really half of what occurred quot | B |
| - | |
| She faced herself at last the story runs | N |
| And telegraphed her sister quot Come at once | O |
| Facts out of hand Unable overtake | P |
| Without your aid Come back for Truth's own sake | P |
| Co equal rank and powers if you agree | G |
| They need us both but you far more than me quot | B |
Rudyard Kipling
(1)
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