Haec Fabula Docet
Ambrose Bierce 1842 (Meigs County) – 1914 (Chihuahua)
A rat who'd gorged a box of bane
And suffered an internal pain,
Came from his hole to die (the label
Required it if the rat were able)
And found outside his habitat
A limpid stream. Of bane and rat
'T was all unconscious; in the sun
It ran and prattled just for fun.
Keen to allay his inward throes,
The beast immersed his filthy nose
And drank-then, bloated by the stream,
And filled with superheated steam,
Exploded with a rascal smell,
Remarking, as his fragments fell
Astonished in the brook: 'I'm thinking
This water's damned unwholesome drinking!'
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 30 sec read
- 150 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 546 |
Words | 101 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 16 |
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"Haec Fabula Docet" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/1799/haec-fabula-docet>.
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