The Ghost That Jim Saw Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCC DDEEFFF GGCCHHH IIJJKKK LLKKMMM MMNOPPP MMQ RRR BBIIMMM| Why as to that said the engineer | A |
| Ghosts ain't things we are apt to fear | A |
| Spirits don't fool with levers much | B |
| And throttle valves don't take to such | B |
| And as for Jim | C |
| What happened to him | C |
| Was one half fact and t'other half whim | C |
| - | |
| Running one night on the line he saw | D |
| A house as plain as the moral law | D |
| Just by the moonlit bank and thence | E |
| Came a drunken man with no more sense | E |
| Than to drop on the rail | F |
| Flat as a flail | F |
| As Jim drove by with the midnight mail | F |
| - | |
| Down went the patents steam reversed | G |
| Too late for there came a thud Jim cursed | G |
| As the fireman there in the cab with him | C |
| Kinder stared in the face of Jim | C |
| And says What now | H |
| Says Jim What now | H |
| I've just run over a man that's how | H |
| - | |
| The fireman stared at Jim They ran | I |
| Back but they never found house nor man | I |
| Nary a shadow within a mile | J |
| Jim turned pale but he tried to smile | J |
| Then on he tore | K |
| Ten mile or more | K |
| In quicker time than he'd made afore | K |
| - | |
| Would you believe it the very next night | L |
| Up rose that house in the moonlight white | L |
| Out comes the chap and drops as before | K |
| Down goes the brake and the rest encore | K |
| And so in fact | M |
| Each night that act | M |
| Occurred till folks swore Jim was cracked | M |
| - | |
| Humph let me see it's a year now 'most | M |
| That I met Jim East and says How's your ghost | M |
| Gone says Jim and more it's plain | N |
| That ghost don't trouble me again | O |
| I thought I shook | P |
| That ghost when I took | P |
| A place on an Eastern line but look | P |
| - | |
| What should I meet the first trip out | M |
| But the very house we talked about | M |
| And the selfsame man 'Well ' says I 'I guess | Q |
| It's time to stop this 'yer foolishness ' | - |
| So I crammed on steam | R |
| When there came a scream | R |
| From my fireman that jest broke my dream | R |
| - | |
| 'You've killed somebody ' Says I 'Not much | B |
| I've been thar often and thar ain't no such | B |
| And now I'll prove it ' Back we ran | I |
| And darn my skin but thar was a man | I |
| On the rail dead | M |
| Smashed in the head | M |
| Now I call that meanness That's all Jim said | M |
Bret Harte (francis)
(1)
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