The Lesson Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BB CDE DDFD DDDDDDDD DGHGDDID DADADJKJ LMDNFOPO QDRDFDD DSFSTDUD| Boer War | A |
| - | |
| - | |
| Let us admit it fairly as a business people should | B |
| We have had no end of a lesson it will do us no end of good | B |
| - | |
| Not on a single issue or in one direction or twain | C |
| But conclusively comprehensively and several times and | D |
| again | E |
| - | |
| Were all our most holy illusions knocked higher than Gilde | D |
| roy's kite | D |
| We have had a jolly good lesson and it serves us jolly well | F |
| right | D |
| - | |
| This was not bestowed us under the trees nor yet in the shade | D |
| of a tent | D |
| But swingingly over eleven degrees of a bare brown conti | D |
| nent | D |
| From Lamberts to Delagoa Bay and from Pietersburg to | D |
| Sutherland | D |
| Fell the phenomenal lesson we learned with a fullness ac | D |
| corded no other land | D |
| - | |
| It was our fault and our very great fault and not the judg | D |
| ment of Heaven | G |
| We made an Army in our own image on an island nine by | H |
| seven | G |
| Which faithfully mirrored its makers' ideals equipment and | D |
| mental attitude | D |
| And so we got our lesson and we ought to accept it with | I |
| gratitude | D |
| - | |
| We have spent two hundred million pounds to prove the fact | D |
| once more | A |
| That horses are quicker than men afoot since two and two | D |
| make four | A |
| And horses have four legs and men have two legs and two | D |
| into four goes twice | J |
| And nothing over except our lesson and very cheap at the | K |
| price | J |
| - | |
| For remember this our children shall know we are too near | L |
| for that knowledge | M |
| Not our mere astonied camps but Council and Creed and | D |
| College | N |
| All the obese unchallenged old things that stifle and overlie | F |
| us | O |
| Have felt the effects of the lesson we got an advantage no | P |
| money could by us | O |
| - | |
| Then let us develop this marvellous asset which we alone | Q |
| command | D |
| And which it may subsequently transpire will be worth as | R |
| much as the Rand | D |
| Let us approach this pivotal fact in a humble yet hopeful | F |
| mood | D |
| We have had no end of a lesson it will do us no end of good | D |
| - | |
| It was our fault and our very great fault and now we must | D |
| turn it to use | S |
| We have forty million reasons for failure but not a single | F |
| excuse | S |
| So the more we work and the less we talk the better results | T |
| we shall get | D |
| We have had an Imperial lesson it may make us an Empire | U |
| yet | D |
Rudyard Kipling
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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