Charades Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCC CD EFEFFCFC GGH IIJJ KAKLL IIM NNOC FPQP IPRR STCT AITI UUUV WWW A XXCC BBYY SSZZ CCA2A2 VVQQ CCB2B2 AAC2C2 A I ICTD2TD2 WYE2YCF2CF2 TMTMFIFG2 FTFTCCCC TCTC CC CH2CH2I2J2I2J2 E2 MMMFMMMFTTTTTTTTT I2 I2WIFF E2 CICIIII2I CAI | A |
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She stood at Greenwich motionless amid | B |
The ever shifting crowd of passengers | C |
I marked a big tear quivering on the lid | B |
Of her deep lustrous eye and knew that hers | C |
Were days of bitterness But 'Oh what stirs' | C |
I said 'such storm within so fair a breast ' | - |
Even as I spoke two apoplectic curs | C |
Came feebly up with one wild cry she prest | D |
Each singly to her heart and faltered 'Heaven be blest ' | - |
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Yet once again I saw her from the deck | E |
Of a black ship that steamed towards Blackwall | F |
She walked upon MY FIRST Her stately neck | E |
Bent o'er an object shrouded in her shawl | F |
I could not see the tears the glad tears fall | F |
Yet knew they fell And 'Ah ' I said 'not puppies | C |
Seen unexpectedly could lift the pall | F |
From hearts who KNOW what tasting misery's cup is | C |
As Niobe's or mine or Mr William Guppy's ' | - |
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Spake John Grogblossom the coachman to Eliza Spinks the cook | G |
'Mrs Spinks ' says he 'I've foundered 'Liza dear I'm overtook | G |
Druv into a corner reglar puzzled as a babe unborn | H |
Speak the word my blessed 'Liza speak and John the coachman's yourn ' | - |
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Then Eliza Spinks made answer blushing to the coachman John | I |
'John I'm born and bred a spinster I've begun and I'll go on | I |
Endless cares and endless worrits well I knows it has a wife | J |
Cooking for a genteel family John it's a goluptious life | J |
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'I gets pounds per annum tea and things o' course not reckoned | K |
There's a cat that eats the butter takes the coals and breaks MY | A |
SECOND | K |
There's soci'ty James the footman not that I look after him | L |
But he's aff'ble in his manners with amazing length of limb | L |
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'Never durst the missis enter here until I've said 'Come in' | I |
If I saw the master peeping I'd catch up the rolling pin | I |
Christmas boxes that's a something perkisites that's something too | M |
And I think take all together John I won't be on with you ' | - |
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John the coachman took his hat up for he thought he'd had enough | N |
Rubbed an elongated forehead with a meditative cuff | N |
Paused before the stable doorway said when there in accents mild | O |
'She's a fine young 'oman cook is but that's where it is she's | C |
spiled ' | - |
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I have read in some not marvellous tale | F |
Or if I have not I've dreamed | P |
Of one who filled up the convivial cup | Q |
Till the company round him seemed | P |
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To be vanished and gone tho' the lamps upon | I |
Their face as aforetime gleamed | P |
And his head sunk down and a Lethe crept | R |
O'er his powerful brain and the young man slept | R |
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Then they laid him with care in his moonlit bed | S |
But first having thoughtfully fetched some tar | T |
Adorned him with feathers aware that the weather's | C |
Uncertainty brings on at nights catarrh | T |
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They staid in his room till the sun was high | A |
But still did the feathered one give no sign | I |
Of opening a peeper he might be a sleeper | T |
Such as rests on the Northern or Midland line | I |
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At last he woke and with profound | U |
Bewilderment he gazed around | U |
Dropped one then both feet to the ground | U |
But never spake a word | V |
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Then to my WHOLE he made his way | W |
Took one long lingering survey | W |
And softly as he stole away | W |
Remarked 'By Jove a bird ' | - |
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II | A |
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If you've seen a short man swagger tow'rds the footlights at Shoreditch | X |
Sing out 'Heave aho my hearties ' and perpetually hitch | X |
Up by an ingenious movement trousers innocent of brace | C |
Briskly flourishing a cudgel in his pleased companion's face | C |
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If he preluded with hornpipes each successive thing he did | B |
From a sun browned cheek extracting still an ostentatious quid | B |
And expectorated freely and occasionally cursed | Y |
Then have you beheld depicted by a master's hand MY FIRST | Y |
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O my countryman if ever from thy arm the bolster sped | S |
In thy school days with precision at a young companion's head | S |
If 'twas thine to lodge the marble in the centre of the ring | Z |
Or with well directed pebble make the sitting hen take wing | Z |
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Then do thou each fair May morning when the blue lake is as glass | C |
And the gossamers are twinkling star like in the beaded grass | C |
When the mountain bee is sipping fragrance from the bluebell's lip | A2 |
And the bathing woman tells you Now's your time to take a dip | A2 |
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When along the misty valleys fieldward winds the lowing herd | V |
And the early worm is being dropped on by the early bird | V |
And Aurora hangs her jewels from the bending rose's cup | Q |
And the myriad voice of Nature calls thee to MY SECOND up | Q |
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Hie thee to the breezy common where the melancholy goose | C |
Stalks and the astonished donkey finds that he is really loose | C |
There amid green fern and furze bush shalt thou soon MY WHOLE behold | B2 |
Rising 'bull eyed and majestic' as Olympus queen of old | B2 |
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Kneel at a respectful distance as they kneeled to her and try | A |
With judicious hand to put a ball into that ball less eye | A |
Till a stiffness seize thy elbows and the general public wake | C2 |
Then return and clear of conscience walk into thy well earned steak | C2 |
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III | A |
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Ere yet 'knowledge for the million' | I |
Came out 'neatly bound in boards ' | - |
When like Care upon a pillion | I |
Matrons rode behind their lords | C |
Rarely save to hear the Rector | T |
Forth did younger ladies roam | D2 |
Making pies and brewing nectar | T |
From the gooseberry trees at home | D2 |
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They'd not dreamed of Pan or Vevay | W |
Ne'er should into blossom burst | Y |
At the ball or at the levee | E2 |
Never come in fact MY FIRST | Y |
Nor illumine cards by dozens | C |
With some labyrinthine text | F2 |
Nor work smoking caps for cousins | C |
Who were pounding at MY NEXT | F2 |
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Now have skirts and minds grown ampler | T |
Now not all they seek to do | M |
Is create upon a sampler | T |
Beasts which Buffon never knew | M |
But their venturous muslins rustle | F |
O'er the cragstone and the snow | I |
Or at home their biceps muscle | F |
Grows by practising the bow | G2 |
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Worthier they those dames who fable | F |
Says rode 'palfreys' to the war | T |
With gigantic Thanes whose 'sable | F |
Destriers caracoled' before | T |
Smiled as springing from the war horse | C |
As men spring in modern 'cirques' | C |
They plunged ponderous as a four horse | C |
Coach among the vanished Turks | C |
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In the good times when the jester | T |
Asked the monarch how he was | C |
And the landlady addrest her | T |
Guests as 'gossip' or as 'coz' | C |
When the Templar said 'Gramercy ' | - |
Or ''Twas shrewdly thrust i' fegs ' | - |
To Sir Halbert or Sir Percy | C |
As they knocked him off his legs | C |
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And by way of mild reminders | C |
That he needed coin the Knight | H2 |
Day by day extracted grinders | C |
From the howling Israelite | H2 |
And MY WHOLE in merry Sherwood | I2 |
Sent with preterhuman luck | J2 |
Missiles not of steel but firwood | I2 |
Thro' the two mile distant buck | J2 |
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IV | E2 |
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Evening threw soberer hue | M |
Over the blue sky and the few | M |
Poplars that grew just in the view | M |
Of the hall of Sir Hugo de Wynkle | F |
'Answer me true ' pleaded Sir Hugh | M |
Striving to woo no matter who | M |
'What shall I do Lady for you | M |
'Twill be done ere your eye may twinkle | F |
Shall I borrow the wand of a Moorish enchanter | T |
And bid a decanter contain the Levant or | T |
The brass from the face of a Mormonite ranter | T |
Shall I go for the mule of the Spanish Infantar | T |
That R for the sake of the line we must grant her | T |
And race with the foul fiend and beat in a canter | T |
Like that first of equestrians Tam o' Shanter | T |
I talk not mere banter say not that I can't or | T |
By this MY FIRST a Virginia planter | T |
Sold it me to kill rats I will die instanter ' | - |
The Lady bended her ivory neck and | I2 |
Whispered mournfully 'Go for MY SECOND ' | - |
She said and the red from Sir Hugh's cheek fled | I2 |
And 'Nay ' did he say as he stalked away | W |
The fiercest of injured men | I |
'Twice have I humbled my haughty soul | F |
And on bended knee I have pressed MY WHOLE | F |
But I never will press it again ' | - |
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V | E2 |
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On pinnacled St Mary's | C |
Lingers the setting sun | I |
Into the street the blackguards | C |
Are skulking one by one | I |
Butcher and Boots and Bargeman | I |
Lay pipe and pewter down | I |
And with wild shout come tumbling out | I2 |
To join the Town and Gown | I |
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And now the undergraduates | C |
Come forth by | A |
Charles Stuart Calverley
(1)
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