Dear Old Dick Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBDEFEFGGBBCBHCHGGB BIJIJK KCCGLMLNOPQN RSSGTGHUUGCCGGVGGWGG XYXDDY ZA2ZB2B2GMGGSGSSMGMM MMM CCCMMFC2C2MMMMDedicated 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 |
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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 ' | - |
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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 |
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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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