On The Platform
Ambrose Bierce 1842 (Meigs County) – 1914 (Chihuahua)
When Dr. Bill Bartlett stepped out of the hum
Of Mammon's distracting and wearisome strife
To stand and deliver a lecture on 'Some
Conditions of Intellectual Life,'
I cursed the offender who gave him the hall
To lecture on any conditions at all!
But he rose with a fire divine in his eye,
Haranguing with endless abundance of breath,
Till I slept; and I dreamed of a gibbet reared high,
And Dr. Bill Bartlett was dressing for death.
And I thought in my dream: 'These conditions, no doubt,
Are bad for the life he was talking about.'
So I cried (pray remember this all was a dream):
'Get off of the platform!-it isn't the kind!'
But he fell through the trap, with a jerk at the beam,
And wiggled his toes to unburden his mind.
And, O, so bewitching the thoughts he advanced,
That I clung to his ankles, attentive, entranced!
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 46 sec read
- 114 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABABCC DEDEFF GHGHII |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 814 |
Words | 157 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6 |
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"On The Platform" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/1851/on-the-platform>.
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