The Benefactors Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCB DEDE FGFG HIHI JFJF KLKM NONO PQPR STST NUNU VWVW XYXY DZDZ| Ah What avails the classic bent | A |
| And what the cultured word | B |
| Against the undoctored incident | C |
| That actually occurred | B |
| - | |
| And what is Art whereto we press | D |
| Through paint and prose and rhyme | E |
| When Nature in her nakedness | D |
| Defeats us every time | E |
| - | |
| It is not learning grace nor gear | F |
| Nor easy meat and drink | G |
| But bitter pinch of pain and fear | F |
| That makes creation think | G |
| - | |
| - | |
| When in this world's unpleasing youth | H |
| Our godlike race began | I |
| The longest arm the sharpest tooth | H |
| Gave man control of man | I |
| - | |
| - | |
| Till bruised and bitten to the bone | J |
| And taught by pain and fear | F |
| He learned to deal the far off stone | J |
| And poke the long safe spear | F |
| - | |
| So tooth and nail were obsolete | K |
| As means against a foe | L |
| Till bored by uniform defeat | K |
| Some genius built the bow | M |
| - | |
| Then stone and javelin proved as vain | N |
| As old time tooth and nail | O |
| Till spurred anew by fear and pain | N |
| Man fashioned coats of mail | O |
| - | |
| Then was there safety for the rich | P |
| And danger for the poor | Q |
| Till someone mixed a powder which | P |
| Redressed the scale once more | R |
| - | |
| Helmet and armour disappeared | S |
| With sword and bow and pike | T |
| And when the smoke of battle cleared | S |
| All men were armed alike | T |
| - | |
| And when ten million such were slain | N |
| To please one crazy king | U |
| Man schooled in bulk by fear and pain | N |
| Grew weary of the thing | U |
| - | |
| And at the very hour designed | V |
| To enslave him past recall | W |
| His tooth stone arrow gun shy mind | V |
| Turned and abolished all | W |
| - | |
| All Power each Tyrant every Mob | X |
| Whose head has grown too large | Y |
| Ends by destroying its own job | X |
| And works its own discharge | Y |
| - | |
| And Man whose mere necessities | D |
| Move all things from his path | Z |
| Trembles meanwhile at their decrees | D |
| And deprecates their wrath | Z |
Rudyard Kipling
(1)
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