The Tale Of A Pony Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBBBBB CCDDEFFFFGH BBBBBBBBBB FFFFIIJJKK LLMMNNOOBBBBBPPBQQ RRRRNSGGNNNTTTUUVVVV WWWWWWWBBBWW FFUUUUBBBBBBGG FFName of my heroine simply Rose | A |
Surname tolerable only in prose | A |
Habitat Paris that is where | B |
She resided for change of air | B |
Aetat twenty complexion fair | B |
Rich good looking and debonnaire | B |
Smarter than Jersey lightning There | B |
That's her photograph done with care | B |
- | |
In Paris whatever they do besides | C |
EVERY LADY IN FULL DRESS RIDES | C |
Moire antiques you never meet | D |
Sweeping the filth of a dirty street | D |
But every woman's claim to ton | E |
Depends upon | F |
The team she drives whether phaeton | F |
Landau or britzka Hence it's plain | F |
That Rose who was of her toilet vain | F |
Should have a team that ought to be | G |
Equal to any in all Paris | H |
- | |
Bring forth the horse The commissaire | B |
Bowed and brought Miss Rose a pair | B |
Leading an equipage rich and rare | B |
Why doth that lovely lady stare | B |
Why The tail of the off gray mare | B |
Is bobbed by all that's good and fair | B |
Like the shaving brushes that soldiers wear | B |
Scarcely showing as much back hair | B |
As Tam O'Shanter's Meg and there | B |
Lord knows she'd little enough to spare | B |
- | |
That stare and frown the Frenchman knew | F |
But did as well bred Frenchmen do | F |
Raised his shoulders above his crown | F |
Joined his thumbs with the fingers down | F |
And said Ah Heaven then Mademoiselle | I |
Delay one minute and all is well | I |
He went returned by what good chance | J |
These things are managed so well in France | J |
I cannot say but he made the sale | K |
And the bob tailed mare had a flowing tail | K |
- | |
All that is false in this world below | L |
Betrays itself in a love of show | L |
Indignant Nature hides her lash | M |
In the purple black of a dyed mustache | M |
The shallowest fop will trip in French | N |
The would be critic will misquote Trench | N |
In short you're always sure to detect | O |
A sham in the things folks most affect | O |
Bean pods are noisiest when dry | B |
And you always wink with your weakest eye | B |
And that's the reason the old gray mare | B |
Forever had her tail in the air | B |
With flourishes beyond compare | B |
Though every whisk | P |
Incurred the risk | P |
Of leaving that sensitive region bare | B |
She did some things that you couldn't but feel | Q |
She wouldn't have done had her tail been real | Q |
- | |
Champs Elysees time past five | R |
There go the carriages look alive | R |
Everything that man can drive | R |
Or his inventive skill contrive | R |
Yankee buggy or English chay | N |
Dog cart droschky and smart coupe | S |
A desobligeante quite bulky | G |
French idea of a Yankee sulky | G |
Band in the distance playing a march | N |
Footman standing stiff as starch | N |
Savans lorettes deputies Arch | N |
Bishops and there together range | T |
Sous lieutenants and cent gardes strange | T |
Way these soldier chaps make change | T |
Mixed with black eyed Polish dames | U |
With unpronounceable awful names | U |
Laces tremble and ribbons flout | V |
Coachmen wrangle and gendarmes shout | V |
Bless us what is the row about | V |
Ah here comes Rosy's new turnout | V |
Smart You bet your life 'twas that | W |
Nifty short for magnificat | W |
Mulberry panels heraldic spread | W |
Ebony wheels picked out with red | W |
And two gray mares that were thoroughbred | W |
No wonder that every dandy's head | W |
Was turned by the turnout and 'twas said | W |
That Caskowhisky friend of the Czar | B |
A very good whip as Russians are | B |
Was tied to Rosy's triumphal car | B |
Entranced the reader will understand | W |
By ribbons that graced her head and hand | W |
- | |
Alas the hour you think would crown | F |
Your highest wishes should let you down | F |
Or Fate should turn by your own mischance | U |
Your victor's car to an ambulance | U |
From cloudless heavens her lightnings glance | U |
And these things happen even in France | U |
And so Miss Rose as she trotted by | B |
The cynosure of every eye | B |
Saw to her horror the off mare shy | B |
Flourish her tail so exceedingly high | B |
That disregarding the closest tie | B |
And without giving a reason why | B |
She flung that tail so free and frisky | G |
Off in the face of Caskowhisky | G |
- | |
Excuses blushes smiles in fine | F |
End of the pony's tail and mine | F |
Bret Harte
(1)
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