Old Schooldays Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBA CDEC FGGF HIIH AJJK LMML NJJO PQQP RSSR JTTJ UVVW QRRQ XVVX| Awake of Muse the echoes of a day | A |
| Long past the ghosts of mem'ries manifold | B |
| Youth's memories that once were green and gold | B |
| But now alas are grim and ashen grey | A |
| - | |
| The drowsy schoolboy wakened up from sleep | C |
| First stays his system with substantial food | D |
| Then off for school with tasks half understood | E |
| Alas alas that cribs should be so cheap | C |
| - | |
| The journey down to town 'twere long to tell | F |
| The storm and riot of the rabble rout | G |
| The wild Walpurgis revel in and out | G |
| That made the ferry boat a floating hell | F |
| - | |
| What time the captive locusts fairly roared | H |
| And bulldog ants made stingless with a knife | I |
| Climbed up the seats and scared the very life | I |
| From timid folk who near jumped overboard | H |
| - | |
| The hours of lessons hours with feet of clay | A |
| Each hour a day each day more like a week | J |
| While hapless urchins heard with blanched cheek | J |
| The words of doom Come in on Saturday | K |
| - | |
| The master gowned and spectacled precise | L |
| Trying to rule by methods firm and kind | M |
| But always just a little bit behind | M |
| The latest villainy the last device | L |
| - | |
| Born of some smoothfaced urchin's fertile brain | N |
| To irritate the hapless pedagogue | J |
| And first involve him in a mental fog | J |
| Then have him with the same old tale again | O |
| - | |
| The bogus fight that brought the sergeant down | P |
| To that dark corner by the old brick wall | Q |
| Where mimic combat and theatric brawl | Q |
| Made noise enough to terrify the town | P |
| - | |
| But on wet days the fray was genuine | R |
| When small boys pushed each other in the mud | S |
| And fought in silence till thin streams of blood | S |
| Their dirty faces would incarnadine | R |
| - | |
| The football match or practice in the park | J |
| With rampant hoodlums joining in the game | T |
| Till on one famous holiday there came | T |
| A gang that seized the football for a lark | J |
| - | |
| Then raged the combat without rest or pause | U |
| Till one a hero Hawkins unafraid | V |
| Regained the ball and later on displayed | V |
| His nose knocked sideways in his country's cause | W |
| - | |
| Before the mind quaint visions rise and fall | Q |
| Old jokes old students dead and gone | R |
| And some that lead us still while some toil on | R |
| As rank and file but Grammar children all | Q |
| - | |
| And he the pilot who has laid the course | X |
| For all to steer by honest unafraid | V |
| Truth is his beacon light so he has made | V |
| The name of the old School a living force | X |
Banjo Paterson (andrew Barton)
(1)
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