Rebuke
When Admonition's hand essaysOur greed to curse,Its lifted finger oft displaysOur missing purse.
Words in this poem
- greed n.
- An eager desire or longing; greediness; as, a greed of gain. [Akin to Goth. grdus hunger, Icel. graedhr. sq. root34. See Greedy.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Rebuke 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, Rebuke, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/rebuke.html, id L28015.
Form and metre
Rebuke is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See 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 ABAB essaysA · curseB · displaysA · purseB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When Admonition's hand essays | 8 | ··˘/˘·˘/ |
| Our greed to curse, | 5 | /˘··· |
| Its lifted finger oft displays | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Our missing purse. | 5 | /˘/˘· |
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.