Co-operation
No more the swindler singly seeks his prey;To hunt in couples is the modern way--A rascal, from the public to purloin,An honest man to hide away the coin.
Words in this poem
- swindler n.
- One who swindles, or defrauds grossly; one who makes a practice of defrauding others by imposition or deliberate artifice; a cheat. [G. schwindler, fr. schwindlen to be dizzy, to act thoughtlessly, to cheat, fr. schwindel dizziness, fr. schwinden to vanish, to disappear, to dwindle. See Swim ]
- purloin v. t.
- To take or carry away for one's self; hence, to steal; to take by theft; to filch. [OF. purloignier, porloignier, to retard, delay; pur, por, pour, for (L. pro) + loin far, far off (L. longe). See Prolong, and cf. Eloign.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Co-operation is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shapes of Clay (1903), Project Gutenberg ebook #12658; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ambrose Bierce, Co-operation, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/co-operation.html, id L28189.
Form and metre
Co-operation is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB preyA · wayA · purloinB · coinB
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| No more the swindler singly seeks his prey; | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| To hunt in couples is the modern way-- | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| A rascal, from the public to purloin, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| An honest man to hide away the coin. | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.