The Old Grey Squirrel Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDEFE BBCBGHIHJKLK MBCBBBNB MJOJDBNBPB| A great while ago there was a schoolboy | A |
| who lived in a cottage by the sea | B |
| And the very first thing he could remember | C |
| was the rigging of the schooners by the quay | B |
| He could watch 'em from his bedroom window | D |
| with the big cranes a hauling out the freight | E |
| And he used to dream of shipping as a sea cook | F |
| and a sailing for the Golden Gate | E |
| - | |
| He used to buy the yellow penny dreadfuls | B |
| he'd read 'em where he fished for conger eels | B |
| As he listened to the slapping of the water | C |
| the green and oily water round the keels | B |
| There were trawlers with their shark mouthed flatfish | G |
| and the nets a hanging out to dry | H |
| And the skate the skipper kept because he liked 'em | I |
| and the landsmen never knew which ones to fry | H |
| There were brigantines with timber out of Norway | J |
| just oozing with the syrups of the pine | K |
| There were rusty dusty freighters out of Sunderland | L |
| and clippers of the Blue Cross Line | K |
| - | |
| To tumble down the hatch into a cabin | M |
| was better than the best of broken rules | B |
| For the smell of 'em was like a Christmas dinner | C |
| and the feel of 'em was like a box of tools | B |
| And before he went to sleep in the evenings | B |
| the last thing that he would ever see | B |
| Was the sailormen a dancing in the moonlight | N |
| by the capstan that stood beside the quay | B |
| - | |
| Now he's sitting on a high stool in London | M |
| the Golden Gate is far away | J |
| For they caught him like a squirrel and they caged him | O |
| now he's totting up accounts and turning grey | J |
| And he'll never get to San Francisco | D |
| and the last thing that he will ever see | B |
| Is the sailormen a dancing in the moonlight | N |
| by the capstan that stands beside the quay | B |
| To the tune of the old concertina | P |
| by the capstan that stands beside the quay | B |
Alfred Noyes
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