Paddy's Letter, 1857 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAC DEDE A EFGA HIJI KFKL MNMN OPQR FSFT FUFU FVFV DWDX| I've had all sorts of luck sometimes bad sometimes better | A |
| But now I have somebody's luck and my own | B |
| For I stooped in the street and I picked up a letter | A |
| Which some one had written to send away home | C |
| - | |
| The old adage says What you find you may keep it | D |
| And as most of these old sayings are very true | E |
| I straight broke the seal and then having read it | D |
| The contents of this letter I tell unto you | E |
| - | |
| The Letter | A |
| - | |
| Dear Dermot I hope when this letter gets to you | E |
| 'Twill find you in health as now it leaves me | F |
| But I hope you're more happy than I am in Australia | G |
| If not it's small comfort that you have achree | A |
| - | |
| Hard fortune's been mine since crossing the line | H |
| Though that same I ne'er saw for we crossed it at night | I |
| But they say 'twas laid down at expense of the Crown | J |
| To divide the wrong side of the world from the right | I |
| - | |
| But what should a boy placed in my situation | K |
| Know about lines laid across the big sea | F |
| But faith this I know and without navigation | K |
| I'm at the wrong side of the line anyway | L |
| - | |
| I'm telling you now how strange seasons fall | M |
| We have here rain and sleet in the month of July | N |
| And hailstones as big as a small cannon ball | M |
| And they do as much harm not a word of a lie | N |
| - | |
| But the making of magistrates now all the rage is | O |
| And every flockmaster's a justice of peace | P |
| They find it so easy to cancel the wages | Q |
| The law is their own and they rob whom they please | R |
| - | |
| Pat Murphy's boy Tim that married Moll Casey | F |
| Lives on the Barcoo that's away in the bush | S |
| Himself and the wife why they lived mighty aisy | F |
| Till one day on Tim oh the blacks they did rush | T |
| - | |
| They killed little Paddy but spared the young baby | F |
| Because it was sickly I think it was that | U |
| And while Molly was crying a gin said No habbie | F |
| Your thin picaninny well wait till it's fat | U |
| - | |
| 'Tis a beautiful country to practise economy | F |
| Though the houses out here are not quite waterproof | V |
| But they're illigant houses for studying astronomy | F |
| You can lie on your back and read stars through the roof | V |
| - | |
| P S This is cramped if there's no one to read it | D |
| Send for Tim Murphy he'll know every stroke | W |
| Ye all have my blessing I know that yell need it | D |
| So no more at present from Teddy O'Rourke | X |
Banjo Paterson (andrew Barton)
(1)
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