No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Franklin P. Adams 1881 (Chicago, Illinois) – 1960 (New York City, New York)
There was a man in our town who had King Midas' touch;
He gave away his millions to the colleges and such;
And people cried: "The hypocrite! He ought to understand
The ones who really need him are the children of this land!"
When Andrew Croesus built a home for children who were sick,
The people said they rather thought he did it as a trick,
And writers said: "He thinks about the drooping girls and boys,
But what about conditions with the men whom he employs?"
There was a man in our town who said that he would share
His profits with his laborers, for that was only fair,
And people said: "Oh, isn't he the shrewd and foxy gent?
It cost him next to nothing for that free advértisement!"
There was a man in our town who had the perfect plan
To do away with poverty and other ills of man,
But he feared the public jeering, and the folks who would defame him,
So he never told the plan he had, and I can hardly blame him.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 27, 2023
- 54 sec read
- 276 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABBCCDD EEXB FFGG |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 917 |
Words | 185 |
Stanzas | 3 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 4, 4 |
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"No Good Deed Goes Unpunished" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 25 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/14140/no-good-deed-goes-unpunished>.
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