The Latest Chinese Outrage Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEFGF HHIIJJKKCKKK AALLMMNNOOOOKO CCPPQQR CCCCHC SSTTFFUUCCFFFFKF FFVVWWWWFW AAXXLLFFFFCF HHXXNNNNGN NNNNAAFFCCYCIt was noon by the sun we had finished our game | A |
And was passin' remarks goin' back to our claim | A |
Jones was countin' his chips Smith relievin' his mind | B |
Of ideas that a straight should beat three of a kind | B |
When Johnson of Elko came gallopin' down | C |
With a look on his face 'twixt a grin and a frown | C |
And he calls Drop your shovels and face right about | D |
For them Chinees from Murphy's are cleanin' us out | D |
With their ching a ring chow | E |
And their chic colorow | F |
They're bent upon making | G |
No slouch of a row | F |
- | |
Then Jones my own pardner looks up with a sigh | H |
It's your wash bill sez he and I answers You lie | H |
But afore he could draw or the others could arm | I |
Up tumbles the Bates boys who heard the alarm | I |
And a yell from the hill top and roar of a gong | J |
Mixed up with remarks like Hi yi Chang a wong | J |
And bombs shells and crackers that crashed through the trees | K |
Revealed in their war togs four hundred Chinees | K |
Four hundred Chinee | C |
We are eight don't ye see | K |
That made a square fifty | K |
To just one o' we | K |
- | |
They were dressed in their best but I grieve that that same | A |
Was largely made up of our own to their shame | A |
And my pardner's best shirt and his trousers were hung | L |
On a spear and above him were tauntingly swung | L |
While that beggar Chey Lee like a conjurer sat | M |
Pullin' out eggs and chickens from Johnson's best hat | M |
And Bates's game rooster was part of their loot | N |
And all of Smith's pigs were skyugled to boot | N |
But the climax was reached and I like to have died | O |
When my demijohn empty came down the hillside | O |
Down the hillside | O |
What once held the pride | O |
Of Robertson County | K |
Pitched down the hillside | O |
- | |
Then we axed for a parley When out of the din | C |
To the front comes a rockin' that heathen Ah Sin | C |
You owe flowty dollee me washee you camp | P |
You catchee my washee me catchee no stamp | P |
One dollar hap dozen me no catchee yet | Q |
Now that flowty dollee no hab how can get | Q |
Me catchee you piggee me sellee for cash | R |
It catchee me licee you catchee no 'hash ' | - |
Me belly good Sheliff me lebbee when can | C |
Me allee same halp pin as Melican man | C |
But Melican man | C |
He washee him pan | C |
On BOTTOM side hillee | H |
And catchee how can | C |
- | |
Are we men says Joe Johnson and list to this jaw | S |
Without process of warrant or color of law | S |
Are we men or a chew here be gasped in his speech | T |
For a stink pot had fallen just out of his reach | T |
Shall we stand here as idle and let Asia pour | F |
Her barbaric hordes on this civilized shore | F |
Has the White Man no country Are we left in the lurch | U |
And likewise what's gone of the Established Church | U |
One man to four hundred is great odds I own | C |
But this 'yer's a White Man I plays it alone | C |
And he sprang up the hillside to stop him none dare | F |
Till a yell from the top told a White Man was there | F |
A White Man was there | F |
We prayed he might spare | F |
Those misguided heathens | K |
The few clothes they wear | F |
- | |
They fled and he followed but no matter where | F |
They fled to escape him the White Man was there | F |
Till we missed first his voice on the pine wooded slope | V |
And we knew for the heathen henceforth was no hope | V |
And the yells they grew fainter when Petersen said | W |
It simply was human to bury his dead | W |
And then with slow tread | W |
We crept up in dread | W |
But found nary mortal there | F |
Living or dead | W |
- | |
But there was his trail and the way that they came | A |
And yonder no doubt he was bagging his game | A |
When Jones drops his pickaxe and Thompson says Shoo | X |
And both of 'em points to a cage of bamboo | X |
Hanging down from a tree with a label that swung | L |
Conspicuous with letters in some foreign tongue | L |
Which when freely translated the same did appear | F |
Was the Chinese for saying A White Man is here | F |
And as we drew near | F |
In anger and fear | F |
Bound hand and foot Johnson | C |
Looked down with a leer | F |
- | |
In his mouth was an opium pipe which was why | H |
He leered at us so with a drunken like eye | H |
They had shaved off his eyebrows and tacked on a cue | X |
They had painted his face of a coppery hue | X |
And rigged him all up in a heathenish suit | N |
Then softly departed each man with his loot | N |
Yes every galoot | N |
And Ah Sin to boot | N |
Had left him there hanging | G |
Like ripening fruit | N |
- | |
At a mass meeting held up at Murphy's next day | N |
There were seventeen speakers and each had his say | N |
There were twelve resolutions that instantly passed | N |
And each resolution was worse than the last | N |
There were fourteen petitions which granting the same | A |
Will determine what Governor Murphy's shall name | A |
And the man from our district that goes up next year | F |
Goes up on one issue that's patent and clear | F |
Can the work of a mean | C |
Degraded unclean | C |
Believer in Buddha | Y |
Be held as a lien | C |
Bret Harte
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