A Bad Night Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDDDEB FC C G H GGGIBGGBJBDGKLAMNBGO PGGGCDGQRGCSDBT GCB D G UVGWX C B YB H DZGA2B2 G C2 CGDD2 C GAGA GGGG G C G C G C G F GGBG CCDC H E2 GGXF2GGG2 B2GBGG C GG CC GG H2H2 CC G GGHH C I2I2I2 G GGGGCCJ2K2BB GGGG HJ2BI G GGBBDDG BBBBCBG H G D HL2CHL2BG D G D C B H GGG GBBD B AB C ZL2 G G DD G L2L2CL2CCGG BBCL2GCYBBBDRAMATIS PERSONAE | A |
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VILLIAM a Sen | B |
NEEDLESON a Sidniduc | C |
SMILER a Scheister | D |
KI YI a Trader | D |
GRIMGHAST a Spader | D |
SARALTHIA a Love lorn Nymph | E |
NELLIBRAC a Sweetun | B |
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A BODY A GHOST AN UNMENTIONABLE THING SKULLS | F |
HOODOOS ETC | C |
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Scene a Cemetery in San Francisco | C |
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Saralthia Nellibrac Grimghast | G |
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SARALTHIA | H |
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The red half moon is dipping to the west | G |
And the cold fog invades the sleeping land | G |
Lo how the grinning skulls in the level light | G |
Litter the place Methinks that every skull | I |
Is a most lifelike portrait of my Sen | B |
Drawn by the hand of Death each fleshless pate | G |
Cursed with a ghastly grin to eyes unrubbed | G |
With love's magnetic ointment seems to mine | B |
To smile an amiable smile like his | J |
Whose amiable smile I I alone | B |
Am able to distinguish from his leer | D |
See how the gathering coyotes flit | G |
Through the lit spaces or with burning eyes | K |
Star the black shadows with a steadfast gaze | L |
About my feet the poddy toads at play | A |
Bulbously comfortable try to hop | M |
And tumble clumsily with all their warts | N |
While pranking lizards sliding up and down | B |
My limbs as they were public roads impart | G |
A singularly interesting chill | O |
The circumstance and passion of the time | P |
The cast and manner of the place the spirit | G |
Of this confederate environment | G |
Command the rights we come to celebrate | G |
Obedient to the Inspired Hag | C |
The seventh daughter of the seventh daughter | D |
Who rules all destinies from Minna street | G |
A dollar a destiny Here at this grave | Q |
Which for my purposes thou Jack of Spades | R |
To Grimghast | G |
Corrupter than the thing that reeks below | C |
Hast opened secretly we'll work the charm | S |
Now what's the hour | D |
Distant clock strikes thirteen | B |
Enough hale forth the stiff | T |
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Grimghast by means of a boat hook stands the coffin on end | G |
in the excavation the lid crumbles exposing the remains of a | C |
man | B |
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Ha Master Mouldybones how fare you sir | D |
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THE BODY | G |
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Poorly I thank your ladyship I miss | U |
Some certain fingers and an ear or two | V |
There's something too gone wrong with my inside | G |
And my periphery's not what it was | W |
How can we serve each other you and I | X |
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NELLIBRAC | C |
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O what a personable man | B |
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Blushes bashfully drops her eyes and twists the corner of | Y |
her apron | B |
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SARALTHIA | H |
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Yes dear | D |
A very proper and alluring male | Z |
And quite superior to Lubin Rroyd | G |
Who has however this distinct advantage | A2 |
He is alive | B2 |
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GRIMGHAST | G |
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Missus these yer remains | C2 |
Was the boss singer back in ' | - |
And used to allers git invites to go | C |
Down to Swellmont and sing at every feed | G |
In t'other Villiam's time that was afore | D |
The gent that you've hooked onto bought the place | D2 |
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THE BODY singing | C |
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Down among the sainted dead | G |
Many years I lay | A |
Beetles occupied my head | G |
Moles explored my clay | A |
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There we feasted day and night | G |
I and bug and beast | G |
They provided appetite | G |
And I supplied the feast | G |
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The raven is a dicky bird | G |
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SARALTHIA singing | C |
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The jackal is a daisy | G |
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NELLIBRAC singing | C |
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The wall mouse is a worthy third | G |
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A SPOOK singing | C |
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But mortals all are crazy | G |
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CHORUS OF SKULLS | F |
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O mortals all are crazy | G |
Their intellects are hazy | G |
In the growing moon they shake their shoon | B |
And trip it in the mazy | G |
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But when the moon is waning | C |
Their senses they're regaining | C |
They fall to prayer and from their hair | D |
Remove the straws remaining | C |
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SARALTHIA | H |
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That's right Rogues Gallery pray keep it up | E2 |
Your song recalls my Villiam's 'Auld Lang Syne ' | - |
What time he came and like an amorous bird | G |
That struts before the female of its kind | G |
Warbling to cave her down the bank piped high | X |
His cracked falsetto out of reach Enough | F2 |
Now let's to business Nellibrac sweet child | G |
St Cloacina's future devotee | G |
The time is ripe and rotten gut the grip | G2 |
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Nellibrac brings forward a valise and takes from it five | B2 |
articles of clothing which one by one she lays upon the points | G |
of a magic pentagram that has thoughtfully inscribed itself in | B |
lines of light on the wet grass The Body holds its late lamented | G |
nose | G |
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NELLIBRAC singing | C |
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Fragrant socks by Villiam's toes | G |
Consecrated to the nose | G |
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Shirt that shows the well worn track | C |
Of the knuckles of his back | C |
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Handkerchief with mottled stains | G |
Into which he blew his brains | G |
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Collar crying out for soap | H2 |
Prophet of the future rope | H2 |
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An unmentionable thing | C |
It would sicken me to sing | C |
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UNMENTIONABLE THING aside | G |
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What I unmentionable Just you wait | G |
In all the family journals of the State | G |
You'll sometime see that I'm described at length | H |
With supereditorial grace and strength | H |
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SARALTHIA singing | C |
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Throw them in the open tomb | I2 |
They will cause his love to bloom | I2 |
With an amatory boom | I2 |
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CHORUS OF INVISIBLE HOODOOS | G |
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Hoodoo hoodoo voudou vet | G |
Villiam struggles in the net | G |
By the power and intent | G |
Of the charm his strength is spent | G |
By the virtue in each rag | C |
Blessed by the Inspired Hag | C |
He will be a willing victim | J2 |
Limp as if a donkey kicked him | K2 |
By this awful incantation | B |
We decree his animation | B |
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By the magic of our art | G |
Warm the cockles of his heart | G |
Villiam if alive or dead | G |
Thou Saralthia shalt wed | G |
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They cast the garments into the grave and push over the | H |
coffin Grimghast fills up the hole Hoodoos gradually become | J2 |
apparent in a phosphorescent light about the grave holding one | B |
another's back hair and dancing in a circle | I |
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HOODOO SONG AND DANCE | G |
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O we're the larrikin hoodoos | G |
The chirruping lirruping hoodoos | G |
We mix things up that the Fates ordain | B |
Bring back the past and the present detain | B |
Postpone the future and sometimes tether | D |
The three and drive them abreast together | D |
We rollicking frolicking hoodoos | G |
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To us all things are the same as none | B |
And nothing is that is under the sun | B |
Seven's a dozen and never is then | B |
Whether is what and what is when | B |
A man is a tree and a cuckoo a cow | C |
For gold galore and silver enow | B |
To magical mystical hoodoos | G |
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SARALTHIA | H |
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What monstrous shadow darkens all the place | G |
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Enter Smyler | D |
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Flung like a doom athwart ha thou | H |
Portentous presence art thou not the same | L2 |
That stalks with aspect horrible among | C |
Small youths and maidens baring snaggy teeth | H |
Champing their tender limbs till crimson spume | L2 |
Flung from thy lips in cursing God and man | B |
Incarnadines the land | G |
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SMYLER | D |
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Thou dammid slut | G |
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Exit Smyler | D |
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NELLIBRAC | C |
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O what a pretty man | B |
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SARALTHIA | H |
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Now who is next | G |
Of tramps and casuals this graveyard seems | G |
Prolific to a fault | G |
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Enter Needleson exhaling prophetically an odor of decayed | G |
eggs and actually one of unlaundried linen He darts an | B |
intense regard at an adjacent marble angel and places his open | B |
hand behind his ear | D |
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NEEDLESON | B |
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Hay | A |
Exit Needleson | B |
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NELLIBRAC | C |
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Sweet sweet male | Z |
I yearn to play at Copenhagen with him | L2 |
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Blushes diligently and energetically | G |
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CHORUS OF SKULLS | G |
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Hoodoos hoodoos disappear | D |
Some dread deity draws near | D |
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Exeunt Hoodos | G |
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Smitten with a sense of doom | L2 |
The dead are cowering in the tomb | L2 |
Seas are calling stars are falling | C |
And appalling is the gloom | L2 |
Fragmentary flames are flung | C |
Through the air the trees among | C |
Lo each hill inclines its head | G |
Earth is bending 'neath his thread | G |
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On the contrary enter Villiam on a chip navigating an | B |
odor of mignonette Saralthia springs forward to put him in | B |
her pocket but he is instantly retracted by an invisible string | C |
She falls headlong breaking her heart Reenter Villiam | L2 |
Needleson Smyler All gather about Saralthia who loudly | G |
laments her accident The Spirit of Tar and Feathers rising | C |
like a black smoke in their midst executes a monstrous wink of | Y |
graphic and vivid significance then contemplates them with an | B |
obviously baptismal intention The cross on Lone Mountain | B |
takes fire splendoring the Peninsula Tableau Curtain | B |
Ambrose Bierce
(1)
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