The Babes In The Woods Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDDDD EFEFGHGH IJIJKKKK LKLKMDMD NDNDOPOP QRQRSKST UVUVWDXD YHYHMDMD ZDZDGA2GA2Something characteristic eh | A |
Humph I reckon you mean by that | B |
Something that happened in our way | C |
Here at the crossin' of Big Pine Flat | B |
Times aren't now as they used to be | D |
When gold was flush and the boys were frisky | D |
And a man would pull out his battery | D |
For anything maybe the price of whiskey | D |
- | |
Nothing of that sort eh That's strange | E |
Why I thought you might be diverted | F |
Hearing how Jones of Red Rock Range | E |
Drawed his hint to the unconverted | F |
And saying Whar will you have it shot | G |
Cherokee Bob at the last debating | H |
What was the question I forgot | G |
But Jones didn't like Bob's way of stating | H |
- | |
Nothing of that kind eh You mean | I |
Something milder Let's see O Joe | J |
Tell to the stranger that little scene | I |
Out of the Babes in the Woods You know | J |
Babes was the name that we gave 'em sir | K |
Two lean lads in their teens and greener | K |
Than even the belt of spruce and fir | K |
Where they built their nest and each day grew leaner | K |
- | |
No one knew where they came from None | L |
Cared to ask if they had a mother | K |
Runaway schoolboys maybe One | L |
Tall and dark as a spruce the other | K |
Blue and gold in the eyes and hair | M |
Soft and low in his speech but rarely | D |
Talking with us and we didn't care | M |
To get at their secret at all unfairly | D |
- | |
For they were so quiet so sad and shy | N |
Content to trust each other solely | D |
That somehow we'd always shut one eye | N |
And never seem to observe them wholly | D |
As they passed to their work 'Twas a worn out claim | O |
And it paid them grub They could live without it | P |
For the boys had a way of leaving game | O |
In their tent and forgetting all about it | P |
- | |
Yet no one asked for their secret Dumb | Q |
It lay in their big eyes' heavy hollows | R |
It was understood that no one should come | Q |
To their tent unawares save the bees and swallows | R |
So they lived alone Until one warm night | S |
I was sitting here at the tent door so sir | K |
When out of the sunset's rosy light | S |
Up rose the Sheriff of Mariposa | T |
- | |
I knew at once there was something wrong | U |
For his hand and his voice shook just a little | V |
And there isn't much you can fetch along | U |
To make the sinews of Jack Hill brittle | V |
Go warn the Babes he whispered hoarse | W |
Tell them I'm coming to get and scurry | D |
For I've got a story that's bad and worse | X |
I've got a warrant G d d n it hurry | D |
- | |
Too late they had seen him cross the hill | Y |
I ran to their tent and found them lying | H |
Dead in each other's arms and still | Y |
Clasping the drug they had taken flying | H |
And there lay their secret cold and bare | M |
Their life their trial the old old story | D |
For the sweet blue eyes and the golden hair | M |
Was a woman's shame and a woman's glory | D |
- | |
Who were they Ask no more or ask | Z |
The sun that visits their grave so lightly | D |
Ask of the whispering reeds or task | Z |
The mourning crickets that chirrup nightly | D |
All of their life but its love forgot | G |
Everything tender and soft and mystic | A2 |
These are our Babes in the Woods you've got | G |
Well human nature that's characteristic | A2 |
Bret Harte (francis)
(1)
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