The Ice-floes Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Dawn from the Foretop Dawn from the Barrel	A
A scurry of feet with a roar overhead	B
The master watch wildly pointing to Northward	C
Where the herd in front of The Eagle was spread	B
	-
Steel planked and sheathed like a battleship's nose	D
She battered her path through the drifting floes	D
Past slob and growler we drove and rammed her	E
Into the heart of the patch and jammed her	E
There were hundreds of thousands of seals I'd swear	F
In the stretch of that field 'white harps' to spare	F
For a dozen such fleets as had left that spring	G
To share in the general harvesting	G
The first of the line we had struck the main herd	C
The day was ours and our pulses stirred	C
In that brisk live hour before the sun	H
At the thought of the load and the sweepstake won	H
	-
We stood on the deck as the morning outrolled	C
On the fields its tissue of orange and gold	C
And lit up the ice to the north in the sharp	I
Clear air each mother seal and its 'harp'	I
Lay side by side and as far as the range	J
Of the patch ran out we saw that strange	J
And unimaginable thing	G
That sealers talk of every spring	G
The 'bobbing holes' within the floes	D
That neither wind nor frost could close	D
Through every hole a seal could dive	K
And search to keep her brood alive	K
A hundred miles it well might be	L
For food beneath that frozen sea	L
Round sunken reef and cape she would rove	M
And though the wind and current drove	M
The ice fields many leagues that day	C
We knew she would turn and find her way	C
Back to the hole without the help	I
Of compass or log to suckle her whelp	I
Back to that hole in the distant floes	L
And smash her way up with her teeth and nose	L
But we flung those thoughts aside when the shout	C
Of command from the master watch rang out	C
	-
Assigned to our places in watches of four	N
Over the rails in a wild carouse	L
Two from the port and starboard bows	L
Two from the broadsides off we tore	N
In the breathless rush for the day's attack	O
With the speed of hounds on a caribou's track	O
With the rise of the sun we started to kill	P
A seal for each blow from the iron bill	P
Of our gaffs From the nose to the tail we ripped them	Q
And laid their quivering carcasses flat	C
On the ice then with our knives we stripped them	Q
For the sake of the pelt and its lining of fat	C
With three fathoms of rope we laced them fast	C
With their skins to the ice to be easy to drag	R
With our shoulders galled we drew them and cast	C
Them in thousands around the watch's flag	R
Then with our bodies begrimed with the reek	S
Of grease and sweat from the toil of the day	C
We made for The Eagle two miles away	C
At the signal that flew from her mizzen peak	S
And through the night as inch by inch	T
She reached the pans with the 'harps' piled high	U
We hoisted them up as the hours filed by	U
To the sleepy growl of the donkey winch	T
	-
Over the bulwarks again we were gone	V
With the first faint streaks of a misty dawn	V
Fast as our arms could swing we slew them	Q
Ripped them 'sculped' them roped and drew them	Q
To the pans where the seals in pyramids rose	L
Around the flags on the central floes	L
Till we reckoned we had nine thousand dead	C
By the time the afternoon had fled	C
And that an added thousand or more	N
Would beat the count of the day before	N
So back again to the patch we went	C
To haul before the day was spent	C
Another load of four 'harps' a man	W
To make the last the record pan	W
And not one of us saw as we gaffed and skinned	C
And took them in tow that the north east wind	C
Had veered off shore that the air was colder	E
That the signs of recall were there to the south	X
The flag of The Eagle and the long thin smoulder	E
That drifted away from her funnel's mouth	X
Not one of us thought of the speed of the storm	Y
That hounded our tracks in the day's last chase	L
For the slaughter was swift and the blood was warm	Y
Till we felt the first sting of the snow in our face	L
We looked south east where an hour ago	Z
Like a smudge on the sky line someone had seen	A2
The Eagle and thought he had heard her blow	Z
A note like a warning from her sirene	A2
We gathered in knots each man within call	B2
Of his mate and slipping our ropes we sped	C
Plunging our way through a thickening wall	B2
Of snow that the gale was driving ahead	C
We ran with the wind on our shoulder we knew	A2
That the night had left us this only clue	A2
Of the track before us though with each wail	C2
That grew to the pang of a shriek from the gale	C2
Some of us swore that The Eagle screamed	C
Right off to the east to others it seemed	C
On the southern quarter and near while the rest	C
Cried out with every report that rose	L
From the strain and the rend of the wind on the floes	L
That The Eagle was firing her guns to the west	C
And some of them turned to the west though to go	Z
Was madness we knew it and roared but the notes	L
Of our warning were lost as a fierce gust of snow	Z
Eddied and strangled the words in our throats	L
Then we felt in our hearts that the night had swallowed	C
All signals the whistle the flare and the smoke	D2
To the south and like sheep in a storm we followed	C
Each other like sheep we huddled and broke	D2
Here one would fall as hunger took hold	C
Of his step here one would sleep as the cold	C
Crept into his blood and another would kneel	E2
Athwart the body of some dead seal	E2
And with knife and nails would tear it apart	C
To flesh his teeth in its frozen heart	C
And another dreamed that the storm was past	C
And raved of his bunk and brandy and food	C
And The Eagle near though in that blast	C
The mother was fully as blind as her brood	C
Then we saw what we feared from the first dark places	L
Here and there to the left of us wide yawning spaces	L
Of water the fissures and cracks had increased	C
Till the outer pans were afloat and we knew	A2
As they drifted along in the night to the east	C
By the cries we heard that some of our crew	A2
Were borne to the sea on those pans and were lost	C
And we turned with the wind in our faces again	A2
And took the snow with its lancing pain	A2
Till our eye balls cracked with the salt and the frost	C
Till only iron and fire that night	C
Survived on the ice as we stumbled on	A2
As we fell and rose and plunged till the light	C
In the south and east disclosed the dawn	A2
And the sea heaving with floes and then	A2
The Eagle in wild pursuit of her men	A2
	-
And the rest is as a story told	C
Or a dream that belonged to a dim mad past	C
Of a March night and a north wind's cold	C
Of a voyage home with a flag half mast	C
Of twenty thousand seals that were killed	C
To help to lower the price of bread	C
Of the muffled beat of a drum that filled	C
A nave at our count of sixty dead	C

E. J. Pratt

The Ice-floes Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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