Rhyme
Rhyme - meaning Summary
Parable of Envy and Shame
The speaker narrates a bitter encounter with a goose that contains golden eggs but refuses to yield them. The bird becomes a symbol of greed, vanity, and unfair advantage: it thrives while the speaker goes hungry. The speaker considers violent retribution but hesitates, torn by the goose's dazzling beauty. The poem ends with a wounded, bleeding exit, leaving unresolved guilt, complicity, and the moral cost of desire exposed.
Read Complete AnalysesI've got a stubborn goose whose gut's Honeycombed with golden eggs, Yet won't lay one. She, addled in her goose-wit, struts The barnyard like those taloned hags Who ogle men And crimp their wrinkles in a grin, Jangling their great money bags. While I eat grits She fattens on the finest grain. Now, as I hone my knife, she begs Pardon, and that's So humbly done, I'd turn this keen Steel on myself before profit By such a rogue's Act, but --- How those feathers shine! Exit from a smoking slit Her ruby dregs.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.