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 OP2OP2Do I know Polly Brown Do I know her Why | A |
damme | B |
You might as well ask if I know my own name | C |
It's a wonder you never heard tell of old Sammy | D |
Her father my mate in the Crackenback claim | C |
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He asks if I know little Poll Why I nursed her | E |
As often I reckon as old Mother Brown | F |
When they lived at the Flats and old Sam | B |
went a burster | E |
In Chinaman's Gully and dropped every crown | F |
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My golden haired mate ever brimful of folly | D |
And childish conceit and yet ready to rest | G |
Contented beside me 'twas I who taught Polly | D |
To handle four horses along with the best | G |
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Twas funny to hear the small fairy discoursing | H |
Of horses and drivers I'll swear that she knew | I |
Every one of the nags that I drove to the Crossing | H |
Their vices and paces and pedigrees too | I |
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She got a strange whim in her golden haired noodle | J |
That a driver's high seat was a kind of a throne | K |
I've taken her up there before she could toddle | J |
And she'd talk to the nags in a tongue of her own | K |
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Then old Mother Brown got the horrors around her | E |
I think it was pineapple rum drove her daft | L |
She cleared out one night and the next morning they | M |
found her | E |
A mummified mass in a forty foot shaft | L |
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And Sammy Well Sammy was wailing and weeping | H |
And raving and raising the devil's own row | E |
He was only too glad to give into our keeping | H |
His motherless babe we'd have kept her till now | N |
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But Jimmy Maloney thought proper to court her | E |
Among all the lasses he loved but this one | O |
She's no longer Polly our golden haired daughter | E |
She's Mrs Maloney of Paddlesack Run | O |
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Our little girl Polly's no end of a swell you | I |
Must know Jimmy shears fifty thousand odd sheep | P |
But I'm clean off the track I was going to tell you | I |
The way in which Polly paid us for her keep | P |
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It was this way My wife's living in Tumbarumba | B |
And I'm down at Germanton yards for a sale | Q |
Inspecting coach horses I wanted a number | E |
When they flashed down a message that made me | B |
turn pale | Q |
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Twas from Polly to say the old wife had fallen | O |
Down stairs and in falling had fractured a bone | K |
There was no doctor nearer than Tumut to call on | R |
So she and the blacksmith had set it alone | K |
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They'd have to come down by the coach in the | S |
morning | H |
As one of the two buggy ponies was lame | B |
Would I see the old doctor and give him fair warning | H |
To keep himself decently straight till they came | B |
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I was making good money those times and a fiver | E |
Per week was the wages my deputy got | T |
A good honest worker and out and out driver | E |
But like all the rest a most terrible sot | U |
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So just on this morning which made it more sinful | J |
With my women on board the unprincipled skunk | H |
Hung round all the bars till he loaded a skinful | J |
Of grog and then started his journey dead drunk | H |
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Drunk with my loved ones on board drunk as Chloe | J |
He might have got right by the end of the trip | V |
Had he rested contented and quiet but no he | J |
Must pull up at Rosewood for one other nip | V |
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That finished him off quick and there he sat dozing | H |
Like an owl on his perch half awake half asleep | P |
Till a lurch of the coach came when suddenly losing | H |
His balance he fell to the earth all of a heap | P |
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While the coach with its four frightened horses | W |
went sailing | H |
Downhill to perdition and Carabost break | H |
Four galloping devils with reins loosely trailing | H |
And passengers falling all roads in their wake | H |
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Two bagmen who sat on the box jumped together | E |
And found a soft bed in the mud of the drain | X |
The barmaid from Murphy's fell light as a feather | E |
I think she got off with a bit of a sprain | X |
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While the jock with his nerves most decidedly | J |
shaken | O |
Made straight for the door never wasting his | Y |
breath | Z |
In farewell apologies basely forsaken | O |
My wife and Poll Brown sat alone with grim | B |
Death | Z |
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While the coach thundered downward my wife fell | J |
a praying | H |
But Poll in a fix now is dashed hard to beat | A2 |
She picked up her skirts scrambled over the swaying | H |
High roof of the coach till she lit on the seat | A2 |
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And there looked around In her hand was a pretty | J |
Frail thing made of laces with which a girl strives | B2 |
To save her complexion when down in the city | J |
A lace parasol yet it saved both their lives | C2 |
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Oh Polly was game you may bet your last dollar | E |
She leans on the splashboard and stretches and | D2 |
strains | E2 |
With her parasol down by the off sider's collar | E |
Until she contrives to catch hold of the reins | E2 |
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They lay quite secure in the crook of the handle | J |
She clutched them the parasol fell underneath | F2 |
I tell you no girl ever could hold a candle | J |
To Poll as she hung back and clenched her white | G2 |
teeth | F2 |
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The bolters sped downward with nostrils distended | H2 |
She must get a pull on them ere they should reach | I2 |
The fence on the hill where the road had been | J2 |
mended | H2 |
The blocks bit the wheels with a sroope and a | S |
screech | I2 |
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The little blue veins in her arms swelled and | D2 |
blackened | D2 |
The reins were like fiddle strings stretched in her grip | V |
When the break hove in sight the mad gallop | K2 |
had slackened | D2 |
She had done it my word they were under the whip | V |
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They still had the pace on but Polly was able | J |
To steer 'twixt the fences with never a graze | L2 |
They flashed past the Change where the groom at | M2 |
the stable | J |
Just stood with his mouth open dumb with amaze | L2 |
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On the level she turned them the best bit of driving | H |
That was ever done on this side of the range | N2 |
And trotted them back up the hill side arriving | H |
With not a strap broken in front of the Change | N2 |
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And the wife well she prayed to the Lord till | J |
she fainted | H2 |
I reckon He answered her prayers all the same | B |
He must have helped Polly it's curious now ain't it | O2 |
To see a thin slip of a girl be so game | B |
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Did I summons the driver I had no occasion | O |
The coroner came with his jury instead | P2 |
Who found that he died from a serious abrasion | O |
Both wheels of the coach had gone over his head | P2 |
Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake
(1)
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