Dear Old Dick Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBDEFEFGGBBCBHCHGGB BIJIJK KCCGLMLNOPQN RSSGTGHUUGCCGGVGGWGG XYXDDY ZA2ZB2B2GMGGSGSSMGMM MMM CCCMMFC2C2MMMM| Dedicated to Vachel Lindsay and in Memory of Richard E Burke | A |
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| Said dear old Dick | B |
| To the colored waiter | C |
| Here George be quick | B |
| Roast beef and a potato | D |
| I'm due at the courthouse at half past one | E |
| You black old scoundrel get a move on you | F |
| I want a pot of coffee and a graham bun | E |
| This vinegar decanter'll make a groove on you | F |
| You black faced mandril you grinning baboon | G |
| Yas sah Yas sah answered the coon | G |
| Now don't you talk back said dear old Dick | B |
| Go and get my dinner or I'll show you a trick | B |
| With a plate a tumbler or a silver castor | C |
| Fuliginous monkey sired by old Nick | B |
| And the nigger all the time was moving round the table | H |
| Rattling the silver things faster and faster | C |
| Yes sah Yas sah soon as I'se able | H |
| I'll bring yo' dinnah as shore as yo's bawn | G |
| Quit talking about it hurry and be gone | G |
| You low down nigger said dear old Dick | B |
| - | |
| Then I said to my friend Suppose he'd up and stick | B |
| A knife in your side for raggin' him so hard | I |
| Or how would you relish some spit in your broth | J |
| Or a little Paris green in your cheese for chard | I |
| Or something in your coffee to make your stomach froth | J |
| Or a bit of asafoetida hidden in your pie | K |
| That's a gentlemanly nigger or he'd black your eye ' | - |
| - | |
| Then dear old Dick made this long reply | K |
| You know I love a nigger | C |
| And I love this nigger | C |
| I met him first on the train from California | G |
| Out of Kansas City in the morning early | L |
| I walked through the diner feeling upset | M |
| For a cup of coffee looking rather surly | L |
| And there sat this nigger by a table all dressed | N |
| Waiting for the time to serve the omelet | O |
| Buttered toast and coffee to the passengers | P |
| And this is what he said in a fine southern way | Q |
| 'Good mawnin ' sah I hopes yo' had yo' rest | N |
| I'm glad to see you on dis sunny day ' | - |
| Now think here's a human who has no other cares | R |
| Except to please the white man serve him when he's starving | S |
| And who has as much fun when he sees you carving | S |
| The sirloin as you do does this black man | G |
| Just think for a minute how the negroes excel | T |
| Can you beat them with a banjo or a broiling pan | G |
| There's music in their soul as original | H |
| As any breed of people in the whole wide earth | U |
| They're elemental hope heartiness mirth | U |
| There are only two things real American | G |
| One is Christian Science the other is the nigger | C |
| Think it over for yourself and see if you can figure | C |
| Anything beside that is not imitation | G |
| Of something in Europe in this hybrid nation | G |
| Return to this globe five hundred years hence | V |
| You'll see how the fundamental color of the coon | G |
| In art in music has altered our tune | G |
| We are destined to bow to their influence | W |
| There's a whole cult of music in Dixie alone | G |
| And that is America put into tone | G |
| - | |
| And dear old Dick gathered speed and said | X |
| Sometimes through Dvor k a vision arises | Y |
| To the words of Merneptah whose hands were red | X |
| 'I shall live I shall live I shall grow I shall grow | D |
| I shall wake up in peace I shall thrill with the glow | D |
| Of the life of Temu the god who prizes | Y |
| Favorite souls and the souls of kings ' | - |
| Now these are the words and here is the dream | Z |
| No wonder you think I am seeing things | A2 |
| The desert of Egypt shimmers in the gleam | Z |
| Of the noonday sun on my dazzled sight | B2 |
| And a giant negro as black as night | B2 |
| Is walking by a camel in a caravan | G |
| His great back glistens with the streaming sweat | M |
| The camel is ridden by a light faced man | G |
| A Greek perhaps or Arabian | G |
| And this giant negro is rhythmically swaying | S |
| With the rhythm of the camel's neck up and down | G |
| He seems to be singing rollicking playing | S |
| His ivory teeth are glistening the Greek is listening | S |
| To the negro keeping time like a tabouret | M |
| And what cares he for Memphis town | G |
| Merneptah the bloody or Books of the Dead | M |
| Pyramids philosophies of madness or dread | M |
| A tune is in his heart a reality | M |
| The camel the desert are things that be | M |
| He's a negro slave but his heart is free | M |
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| Just then the colored waiter brought in the dinner | C |
| Get a hustle on you you miserable sinner | C |
| Said dear old Dick to the colored waiter | C |
| Heah's a nice piece of beef and a great big potato | M |
| I hopes yo'll enjoy 'em sah yas I do | M |
| Heah's black mustahd greens 'specially for yo' | F |
| And a fine piece of jowl that I swiped and took | C2 |
| From a dish set by by the git away cook | C2 |
| I hope yo'll enjoy 'em sah yas I do | M |
| Well George Dick said if Gabriel blew | M |
| His horn this minute you'd up and ascend | M |
| To wait on St Peter world without end | M |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
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