How Polly Paid For Her Keep Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDC EFBEF DGDG HIHI JKJK ELMEL HEHN EOEO IPIP BQEBQ OKRK SHBHB ETEU JHJH JVJV HPHP WHHHH EXEX JOYZOBZ JHA2HA2 JB2JC2 ED2E2EE2 JF2JG2F2 H2I2J2H2SI2 D2D2VK2D2V JL2M2JL2 HN2HN2 JH2BO2B OP2OP2

Do I know Polly Brown Do I know her WhyA
dammeB
You might as well ask if I know my own nameC
It's a wonder you never heard tell of old SammyD
Her father my mate in the Crackenback claimC
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He asks if I know little Poll Why I nursed herE
As often I reckon as old Mother BrownF
When they lived at the Flats and old SamB
went a bursterE
In Chinaman's Gully and dropped every crownF
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My golden haired mate ever brimful of follyD
And childish conceit and yet ready to restG
Contented beside me 'twas I who taught PollyD
To handle four horses along with the bestG
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Twas funny to hear the small fairy discoursingH
Of horses and drivers I'll swear that she knewI
Every one of the nags that I drove to the CrossingH
Their vices and paces and pedigrees tooI
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She got a strange whim in her golden haired noodleJ
That a driver's high seat was a kind of a throneK
I've taken her up there before she could toddleJ
And she'd talk to the nags in a tongue of her ownK
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Then old Mother Brown got the horrors around herE
I think it was pineapple rum drove her daftL
She cleared out one night and the next morning theyM
found herE
A mummified mass in a forty foot shaftL
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And Sammy Well Sammy was wailing and weepingH
And raving and raising the devil's own rowE
He was only too glad to give into our keepingH
His motherless babe we'd have kept her till nowN
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But Jimmy Maloney thought proper to court herE
Among all the lasses he loved but this oneO
She's no longer Polly our golden haired daughterE
She's Mrs Maloney of Paddlesack RunO
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Our little girl Polly's no end of a swell youI
Must know Jimmy shears fifty thousand odd sheepP
But I'm clean off the track I was going to tell youI
The way in which Polly paid us for her keepP
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It was this way My wife's living in TumbarumbaB
And I'm down at Germanton yards for a saleQ
Inspecting coach horses I wanted a numberE
When they flashed down a message that made meB
turn paleQ
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Twas from Polly to say the old wife had fallenO
Down stairs and in falling had fractured a boneK
There was no doctor nearer than Tumut to call onR
So she and the blacksmith had set it aloneK
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They'd have to come down by the coach in theS
morningH
As one of the two buggy ponies was lameB
Would I see the old doctor and give him fair warningH
To keep himself decently straight till they cameB
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I was making good money those times and a fiverE
Per week was the wages my deputy gotT
A good honest worker and out and out driverE
But like all the rest a most terrible sotU
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So just on this morning which made it more sinfulJ
With my women on board the unprincipled skunkH
Hung round all the bars till he loaded a skinfulJ
Of grog and then started his journey dead drunkH
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Drunk with my loved ones on board drunk as ChloeJ
He might have got right by the end of the tripV
Had he rested contented and quiet but no heJ
Must pull up at Rosewood for one other nipV
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That finished him off quick and there he sat dozingH
Like an owl on his perch half awake half asleepP
Till a lurch of the coach came when suddenly losingH
His balance he fell to the earth all of a heapP
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While the coach with its four frightened horsesW
went sailingH
Downhill to perdition and Carabost breakH
Four galloping devils with reins loosely trailingH
And passengers falling all roads in their wakeH
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Two bagmen who sat on the box jumped togetherE
And found a soft bed in the mud of the drainX
The barmaid from Murphy's fell light as a featherE
I think she got off with a bit of a sprainX
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While the jock with his nerves most decidedlyJ
shakenO
Made straight for the door never wasting hisY
breathZ
In farewell apologies basely forsakenO
My wife and Poll Brown sat alone with grimB
DeathZ
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While the coach thundered downward my wife fellJ
a prayingH
But Poll in a fix now is dashed hard to beatA2
She picked up her skirts scrambled over the swayingH
High roof of the coach till she lit on the seatA2
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And there looked around In her hand was a prettyJ
Frail thing made of laces with which a girl strivesB2
To save her complexion when down in the cityJ
A lace parasol yet it saved both their livesC2
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Oh Polly was game you may bet your last dollarE
She leans on the splashboard and stretches andD2
strainsE2
With her parasol down by the off sider's collarE
Until she contrives to catch hold of the reinsE2
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They lay quite secure in the crook of the handleJ
She clutched them the parasol fell underneathF2
I tell you no girl ever could hold a candleJ
To Poll as she hung back and clenched her whiteG2
teethF2
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The bolters sped downward with nostrils distendedH2
She must get a pull on them ere they should reachI2
The fence on the hill where the road had beenJ2
mendedH2
The blocks bit the wheels with a sroope and aS
screechI2
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The little blue veins in her arms swelled andD2
blackenedD2
The reins were like fiddle strings stretched in her gripV
When the break hove in sight the mad gallopK2
had slackenedD2
She had done it my word they were under the whipV
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They still had the pace on but Polly was ableJ
To steer 'twixt the fences with never a grazeL2
They flashed past the Change where the groom atM2
the stableJ
Just stood with his mouth open dumb with amazeL2
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On the level she turned them the best bit of drivingH
That was ever done on this side of the rangeN2
And trotted them back up the hill side arrivingH
With not a strap broken in front of the ChangeN2
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And the wife well she prayed to the Lord tillJ
she faintedH2
I reckon He answered her prayers all the sameB
He must have helped Polly it's curious now ain't itO2
To see a thin slip of a girl be so gameB
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Did I summons the driver I had no occasionO
The coroner came with his jury insteadP2
Who found that he died from a serious abrasionO
Both wheels of the coach had gone over his headP2

Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake



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