Double Ballade On The Nothingness Of Things Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABBCDEAEA ABABBFFEAEA ABABBFEAEA ABABBFFEAEA ABABBFFEAEA ABABBFFEAEA GFFAEEA| The big teetotum twirls | A |
| And epochs wax and wane | B |
| As chance subsides or swirls | A |
| But of the loss and gain | B |
| The sum is always plain | B |
| Read on the mighty pall | C |
| The weed of funeral | D |
| That covers praise and blame | E |
| The isms and the anities | A |
| Magnificence and shame | E |
| O Vanity of Vanities | A |
| - | |
| The Fates are subtle girls | A |
| They give us chaff for grain | B |
| And Time the Thunderer hurls | A |
| Like bolted death disdain | B |
| At all that heart and brain | B |
| Conceive or great or small | F |
| Upon this earthly ball | F |
| Would you be knight and dame | E |
| Or woo the sweet humanities | A |
| Or illustrate a name | E |
| O Vanity of Vanities | A |
| - | |
| We sound the sea for pearls | A |
| Or drown them in a drain | B |
| We flute it with the merles | A |
| Or tug and sweat and strain | B |
| We grovel or we reign | B |
| We saunter or we brawl | F |
| We search the stars for Fame | E |
| Or sink her subterranities | A |
| The legend's still the same | E |
| O Vanity of Vanities | A |
| - | |
| Here at the wine one birls | A |
| There some one clanks a chain | B |
| The flag that this man furls | A |
| That man to float is fain | B |
| Pleasure gives place to pain | B |
| These in the kennel crawl | F |
| While others take the wall | F |
| She has a glorious aim | E |
| He lives for the inanities | A |
| What come of every claim | E |
| O Vanity of Vanities | A |
| - | |
| Alike are clods and earls | A |
| For sot and seer and swain | B |
| For emperors and for churls | A |
| For antidote and bane | B |
| There is but one refrain | B |
| But one for king and thrall | F |
| For David and for Saul | F |
| For fleet of foot and lame | E |
| For pieties and profanities | A |
| The picture and the frame | E |
| O Vanity of Vanities | A |
| - | |
| Life is a smoke that curls | A |
| Curls in a flickering skein | B |
| That winds and whisks and whirls | A |
| A figment thin and vain | B |
| Into the vast Inane | B |
| One end for hut and hall | F |
| One end for cell and stall | F |
| Burned in one common flame | E |
| Are wisdoms and insanities | A |
| For this alone we came | E |
| O Vanity of Vanities | A |
| - | |
| Envoy | G |
| Prince pride must have a fall | F |
| What is the worth of all | F |
| Your state's supreme urbanities | A |
| Bad at the best's the game | E |
| Well might the Sage exclaim | E |
| O Vanity of Vanities | A |
William Ernest Henley
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