A Ballad Of Ducks Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABAACCB DEDDF E GFGGHH IJIIKKJ LFGGKKF MNMMOON KPKKQQP RSRTQQS UPUUFFP FIFFKKI VFVVWW

The railway rattled and roared and swungA
With jolting and bumping trucksB
The sun like a billiard red ball hungA
In the Western sky and the tireless tongueA
Of the wild eyed man in the corner toldC
This terrible tale of the days of oldC
And the party that ought to have kept the ducksB
-
Well it ain't all joy bein' on the landD
With an overdraft that'd knock you flatE
And the rabbits have pretty well took commandD
But the hardest thing for a man to standD
Is the feller who says 'Well I told you soF
You should ha' done this way don't you know '-
I could lay a bait for a man like thatE
-
The grasshoppers struck us in ninety oneG
And what they leave well it ain't de luxeF
But a growlin' fault findin' son of a gunG
Who'd lent some money to stock our runG
I said they'd eaten what grass we hadH
Says he 'Your management's very badH
You had a right to have kept some ducks '-
-
To have kept some ducks And the place was whiteI
Wherever you went you had to treadJ
On grasshoppers guzzlin' day and nightI
And then with a swoosh they rose in flightI
If you didn't look out for yourself they'd flyK
Like bullets into your open eyeK
And knock it out of the back of your headJ
-
There isn't a turkey or goose or swanL
Or a duck that quacks or a hen that clucksF
Can make a difference on a runG
When a grasshopper plague has once begunG
'If you'd finance us ' I says 'I'd buyK
Ten thousand emus and have a tryK
The job ' I says 'is too big for ducksF
-
'You must fetch a duck when you come to stayM
A great big duck a Muscovy toffN
Ready and fit ' I says 'for the frayM
And if the grasshoppers come our wayM
You turn your duck into the lucerne patchO
And I'd be ready to make a matchO
That the grasshoppers eat his feathers offN
-
He came to visit us by and byK
And it just so happened one day in springP
A kind of cloud came over the skyK
A wall of grasshoppers nine miles highK
And nine miles thick and nine hundred wideQ
Flyin' in regiments side by sideQ
And eatin' up every living thingP
-
All day long like a shower of rainR
You'd hear 'em smackin' against the wallS
Tap tap tap on the window paneR
And they'd rise and jump at the house againT
Till their crippled carcasses piled outsideQ
But what did it matter if thousands diedQ
A million wouldn't be missed at allS
-
We were drinkin' grasshoppers so to speakU
Till we skimmed their carcasses off the springP
And they fell so thick in the station creekU
They choked the waterholes all the weekU
There was scarcely room for a trout to riseF
And they'd only take artificial fliesF
They got so sick of the real thingP
-
An Arctic snowstorm was beat to ragsF
When the hoppers rose for their morning flightI
With the flapping noise like a million flagsF
And the kitchen chimney was stuffed with bagsF
For they'd fall right into the fire and fryK
Till the cook sat down and began to cryK
And never a duck or fowl in sightI
-
We strolled across to the railroad trackV
Under a cover beneath some trucksF
I sees a feather and hears a quackV
I stoops and I pulls the tarpaulin backV
Every duck in the place was thereW
No good to them was the open airW
'Mister ' I says 'There's your blanky ducks '-

Banjo Paterson (andrew Barton)



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