Consolation
Little's the good to sit and grieveBecause the serpent tempted Eve.Better to wipe your eyes and takeA club and go out and kill a snake.
What do you gain by cursing NickFor playing her such a scurvy trick?Better go out and some villain findWho serves the devil, and beat him blind.
But if you prefer, as I suspect,To philosophize, why, then, reflect:If the cunning rascal upon the limbHadn't tempted her she'd have tempted him.
Words in this poem
- nick n.
- A notch cut into something; as: (a) A score for keeping an account; a reckoning. [Akin to Nock.]
- philosophize v. i.
- To reason like a philosopher; to search into the reason and nature of things; to investigate phenomena, and assign rational causes for their existence.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Consolation 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, Consolation, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/consolation.html, id L28051.
Form and metre
Consolation is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABB. The metre is trochaic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%).
See other poems in trochaic 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 grieveA · eveA · takeB · snakeB
- 2 AABB nickA · trickA · findB · blindB
- 3 AABB suspectA · reflectA · limbB · himB
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 trochaic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Little's the good to sit and grieve | 8 | /˘······ |
| Because the serpent tempted Eve. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Better to wipe your eyes and take | 8 | /˘······ |
| A club and go out and kill a snake. | 9 | ········· |
| What do you gain by cursing Nick | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| For playing her such a scurvy trick? | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| Better go out and some villain find | 9 | /˘····/˘· |
| Who serves the devil, and beat him blind. | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| But if you prefer, as I suspect, | 9 | ···˘/··˘/ |
| To philosophize, why, then, reflect: | 9 | ·˘/˘˘··˘/ |
| If the cunning rascal upon the limb | 10 | ··/˘/˘···· |
| Hadn't tempted her she'd have tempted him. | 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.