Grub First, Then Ethics Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEBFGHIJKLKMMNOPQ ROSTUVWXYXRRZIYERIRR A2IB2C2D2E2RRF2G2OH2 EG2EI2JJ2RK2RK2EEI2L 2M2N2O2L2P2N2Q2R2GFK 2S2ET2U2V2W2RMREV2X2 JY2EZ2Eopos is we could say to him Well | A |
we can read to ourselves our use | B |
of holy numbers would shock you and a poet | C |
may lament 'Where is Telford | D |
whose bridged canals are still a Shropshire glory | E |
where Muir who on a Douglas Spruce | B |
rode out a storm and called an earthquake noble | F |
where Mr Vynyian Board | G |
thanks to whose life long fuss the hunted whale now suffers | H |
a quicker death ' without being | I |
called an idiot though none of them bore arms or | J |
made a public splash then Look | K |
we would point for a dig at Athens Here | L |
is the place where we cook | K |
Though built in Lower Austria | M |
do it yourself America | M |
prophetically blueprinted this | N |
palace kitchen for kingdoms | O |
where royalty would be incognito for an age when | P |
Courtesy might think From your voice | Q |
and the back of your neck I know we shall get on | R |
but cannot tell from your thumbs | O |
who is to give the orders The right note is harder | S |
to hear than in the Age of Poise | T |
when She talked shamelessly to her maid and sang | U |
noble lies with Him but struck | V |
it can be still in New Knossos where if I am | W |
banned by a shrug it is my fault | X |
not Father's as it is my taste whom | Y |
I put below the salt | X |
The prehistoric hearthstone | R |
round as a birthday button | R |
and sacred to Granny is as old | Z |
stuff as the bowel loosening | I |
nasal war cry but this all electric room | Y |
where ghosts would feel uneasy | E |
a witch at a loss is numinous and again | R |
the centre of a dwelling | I |
not as lately it was an abhorrent dungeon | R |
where the warm unlaundered meiny | R |
belched their comic prose and from a dream of which | A2 |
chaste Milady awoke blushing | I |
House proud deploring labor extolling work | B2 |
these engines politely insist | C2 |
that banausics can be liberals | D2 |
a cook a pure artist | E2 |
who moves Everyman | R |
at a deeper level than | R |
Mozart for the subject of the verb | F2 |
to hunger is never a name | G2 |
dear Adam and Eve had different bottoms | O |
but the neotene who marches | H2 |
upright and can subtract reveals a belly | E |
like a serpent's with the same | G2 |
vulnerable look Jew Gentile or Pigmy | E |
he must get his calories | I2 |
before he can consider her profile or | J |
his own attack you or play chess | J2 |
and take what there is however hard to get down | R |
then surely those in whose creed | K2 |
God is edible may call a fine | R |
omelet a Christian deed | K2 |
The sin of Gluttony | E |
is ranked among the Deadly | E |
Seven but in murder mysteries | I2 |
one can be sure the gourmet | L2 |
didn't do it children brave warriors out of a job | M2 |
can weigh pounds more than they should | N2 |
and one can dislike having to kiss them yet | O2 |
compared with the thin lipped they | L2 |
are seldom detestable Some waiter grieves | P2 |
for the worst dead bore to be a good | N2 |
trencherman and no wonder chefs mature into | Q2 |
choleric types doomed to observe | R2 |
Beauty peck at a master dish their one reward | G |
to behold the mutually hostile | F |
mouth and eyes of a sinner married | K2 |
at the first bite of a smile | S2 |
The houses of our City | E |
are real enough but they lie | T2 |
haphazardly scattered over the earth | U2 |
and Her vagabond forum | V2 |
is any space where two of us happen to meet | W2 |
who can spot a citizen | R |
without papers So too can her foes Where the | M |
power lies remains to be seen | R |
the force though is clearly with them perhaps only | E |
by falling can She become | V2 |
Her own Vision but we have sworn under four eyes | X2 |
to keep Her up all we ask for | J |
should the night come when comets blaze and meres break | Y2 |
is a good dinner that we | E |
may march in high fettle left foot first | Z2 |
to hold her Thermopylae | E |
Wystan Hugh Auden
(1)
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