Luke Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCC DEFGBG HHIJI KKLMM NNOO PPQRSR TUVUSWS XXYDBE GIZIWA2A2A2 IZIB2BB2 DEC2C2 D2D2A2AA2 E2E2CC F2F2KK G2IBIZII FH2H2II SSCCWot's that you're readin' a novel A novel well darn my skin | A |
You a man grown and bearded and histin' such stuff ez that in | A |
Stuff about gals and their sweethearts No wonder you're thin ez a | B |
knife | C |
Look at me clar two hundred and never read one in my life | C |
- | |
That's my opinion o' novels And ez to their lyin' round here | D |
They belong to the Jedge's daughter the Jedge who came up last year | E |
On account of his lungs and the mountains and the balsam o' pine and | F |
fir | G |
And his daughter well she read novels and that's what's the | B |
matter with her | G |
- | |
Yet she was sweet on the Jedge and stuck by him day and night | H |
Alone in the cabin up 'yer till she grew like a ghost all white | H |
She wus only a slip of a thing ez light and ez up and away | I |
Ez rifle smoke blown through the woods but she wasn't my kind no | J |
way | I |
- | |
Speakin' o' gals d'ye mind that house ez you rise the hill | K |
A mile and a half from White's and jist above Mattingly's mill | K |
You do Well now THAR's a gal What you saw her Oh come now | L |
thar quit | M |
She was only bedevlin' you boys for to me she don't cotton one bit | M |
- | |
Now she's what I call a gal ez pretty and plump ez a quail | N |
Teeth ez white ez a hound's and they'd go through a ten penny nail | N |
Eyes that kin snap like a cap So she asked to know whar I was hid | O |
She did Oh it's jist like her sass for she's peart ez a Katydid | O |
- | |
But what was I talking of Oh the Jedge and his daughter she read | P |
Novels the whole day long and I reckon she read them abed | P |
And sometimes she read them out loud to the Jedge on the porch where | Q |
he sat | R |
And 'twas how Lord Augustus said this and how Lady Blanche she | S |
said that | R |
- | |
But the sickest of all that I heerd was a yarn thet they read 'bout | T |
a chap | U |
Leather stocking by name and a hunter chock full o' the greenest | V |
o' sap | U |
And they asked me to hear but I says Miss Mabel not any for me | S |
When I likes I kin sling my own lies and thet chap and I shouldn't | W |
agree | S |
- | |
Yet somehow or other that gal allus said that I brought her to mind | X |
Of folks about whom she had read or suthin belike of thet kind | X |
And thar warn't no end o' the names that she give me thet summer up | Y |
here | D |
Robin Hood Leather stocking Rob Roy Oh I tell you the | B |
critter was queer | E |
- | |
And yet ef she hadn't been spiled she was harmless enough in her | G |
way | I |
She could jabber in French to her dad and they said that she knew | Z |
how to play | I |
And she worked me that shot pouch up thar which the man doesn't | W |
live ez kin use | A2 |
And slippers you see 'em down 'yer ez would cradle an Injin's | A2 |
papoose | A2 |
- | |
Yet along o' them novels you see she was wastin' and mopin' away | I |
And then she got shy with her tongue and at last she had nothin' to | Z |
say | I |
And whenever I happened around her face it was hid by a book | B2 |
And it warn't till the day she left that she give me ez much ez a | B |
look | B2 |
- | |
And this was the way it was It was night when I kem up here | D |
To say to 'em all good by for I reckoned to go for deer | E |
At sun up the day they left So I shook 'em all round by the hand | C2 |
'Cept Mabel and she was sick ez they give me to understand | C2 |
- | |
But jist ez I passed the house next morning at dawn some one | D2 |
Like a little waver o' mist got up on the hill with the sun | D2 |
Miss Mabel it was alone all wrapped in a mantle o' lace | A2 |
And she stood there straight in the road with a touch o' the sun in | A |
her face | A2 |
- | |
And she looked me right in the eye I'd seen suthin' like it before | E2 |
When I hunted a wounded doe to the edge o' the Clear Lake Shore | E2 |
And I had my knee on its neck and I jist was raisin' my knife | C |
When it give me a look like that and well it got off with its life | C |
- | |
We are going to day she said and I thought I would say good by | F2 |
To you in your own house Luke these woods and the bright blue sky | F2 |
You've always been kind to us Luke and papa has found you still | K |
As good as the air he breathes and wholesome as Laurel Tree Hill | K |
- | |
And we'll always think of you Luke as the thing we could not take | G2 |
away | I |
The balsam that dwells in the woods the rainbow that lives in the | B |
spray | I |
And you'll sometimes think of ME Luke as you know you once used to | Z |
say | I |
A rifle smoke blown through the woods a moment but never to stay | I |
- | |
And then we shook hands She turned but a suddent she tottered and | F |
fell | H2 |
And I caught her sharp by the waist and held her a minit Well | H2 |
It was only a minit you know thet ez cold and ez white she lay | I |
Ez a snowflake here on my breast and then well she melted away | I |
- | |
And was gone And thar are her books but I says not any for me | S |
Good enough may be for some but them and I mightn't agree | S |
They spiled a decent gal ez might hev made some chap a wife | C |
And look at me clar two hundred and never read one in my life | C |
Bret Harte
(1)
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