The Governor Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJFKGLMNOPQR STUVIWXYZJHJNA2A2XIB 2C2ND2NE2F2G2CH2I2J2 K2L2HDIM2GBN2O2A2XII P2Q2R2S2 T2JIU2V2W2X2Y2P2 VZ2XA3VS2B3C3ZD3CE3S 2F3G3H3I3J3IK3L3JM3G E2A2N3 S2O3VAI2M3P3A2FE2Q3E VR3S3L3 IIJ M2T3U3IV3FW3IS3IIS3X 3Y3IV2W3L3Z3A4B4Q3G3 C4L3S3KV2I2D4E4F4G4H 4QIF4I4VVN3J4VL3 K4P3GL4M4SA2GN4 EIG4S3I'm home at last How long were you asleep | A |
I startled you The time It's midnight past | B |
Put on your slippers and your robe my dear | C |
And make some coffee for me what a night | D |
Yes tell you I shall tell you everything | E |
I must tell someone and a wife should know | F |
The workings of a governor's mind no one | G |
Could guess what turned the scale to save this man | H |
Who would have died to morrow but for me | I |
That's fine This coffee helps me As I said | J |
This night has been a trial Well you know | F |
I told these lawyers they could come at eight | K |
And so they came A seasoned lawyer one | G |
The other young and radical both full | L |
Of sentiment of some sort And there you sit | M |
And do not say a word of disapproval | N |
You smile which means you sun yourself within | O |
The power I have and yet do you approve | P |
This man committed brutal murder did | Q |
A nameless horror now he's saved from death | R |
The father and the mother of the girl | S |
The neighborhood perhaps in which she lived | T |
Will roar against me think that I was bought | U |
Or used by someone I'm indebted to | V |
In politics Oh no It's really funny | I |
Since it is simpler than such things as these | W |
And no one saving you shall know the secret | X |
For there I sat and didn't say a word | Y |
To indicate betray my thought not when | Z |
The thing came out that moved me Let them read | J |
The doctor's affidavits that this man | H |
Was crazy when he killed the girl and read | J |
The transcript of the evidence on the trial | N |
They read and talked At last the younger lawyer | A2 |
For sometime still kept silent by the other | A2 |
Pops out with something reads an affidavit | X |
As foreign to the matter as a story | I |
Of melodrama color on the screen | B2 |
Which still contained a sentence that went home | C2 |
I felt my mind turn like a turn table | N |
And click as when the switchman kicks the tongue | D2 |
Of steel into the slot that holds the table | N |
And from my mind the engine that's the problem | E2 |
Puffed puffed and moved away out on the track | F2 |
And disappeared upon its business How | G2 |
Is that for metaphor Your coffee dear | C |
Stirs up my fancy But to tell the rest | H2 |
If my face changed expression or my eye | I2 |
Betrayed my thought then I have no control | J2 |
Of outward seeming For they argued on | K2 |
An hour or so thereafter And I asked | L2 |
Re reading of the transcript where this man | H |
Told of his maniac passion of the night | D |
He killed the girl the doctors' testimony | I |
I had re read and let these lawyers think | M2 |
My interest centered there and my decision | G |
Was based upon such matters and at last | B |
The penalty commuted When in truth | N2 |
I tell you I had let the fellow hang | O2 |
For all of this except that I took fire | A2 |
Because of something in this affidavit | X |
Irrelevant to the issue reaching me | I |
In something only relevant to me | I |
O well all life is such Our great decisions | P2 |
Flame out of sparks where roaring fires before | Q2 |
Not touching our combustibles wholly failed | R2 |
To flame or light us | S2 |
- | |
Now the secret hear | T2 |
Do you remember all the books I read | J |
Two years ago upon heredity | I |
Foot notes to evolution the dynamics | U2 |
Of living matter Well it wasn't that | V2 |
That made me save this fellow There you smile | W2 |
For knowing how and when I got these books | X2 |
Who woke my interest in them Never mind | Y2 |
You don't know yet my reasons | P2 |
- | |
But I'll tell you | V |
And let you see a governor's mind at work | Z2 |
When this young lawyer in this affidavit | X |
Read to a certain place my mind strayed off | A3 |
And lived a time past you were present too | V |
It was that morning when I passed my crisis | S2 |
Had just dodged death could scarcely speak too weak | B3 |
To lift a hand to feed myself but needed | C3 |
Vital replenishment of strength and then | Z |
I got it in a bowl of oyster soup | D3 |
Rich cream at that And as I live my dear | C |
As this young lawyer read I felt myself | E3 |
In bed as I lay then re lived the weakness | S2 |
Could see the spoon that carried to my mouth | F3 |
The appetizing soup imagined there | G3 |
The feelings I had then of getting fingers | H3 |
Upon the rail of life again how faint | I3 |
But with such clear degrees Could see the hand | J3 |
That held the spoon the eyes that looked at me | I |
In triumph for the victory of my strength | K3 |
Which battled almost lost the prize of life | L3 |
It all came over me when this lawyer read | J |
Elenor Murray lately come from France | M3 |
Found dead beside the river was the cousin | G |
Of this Fred Taylor and had planned to come | E2 |
To see the governor death prevented her | A2 |
Suppose it had | N3 |
- | |
That affidavit doubtless | S2 |
Was read to me to move me for the fact | O3 |
This man was kindred to a woman who | V |
Served in the war this lawyer was that cheap | A |
And isn't it as cheap to think that I | I2 |
Could be persuaded by the circumstance | M3 |
That Elenor Murray she who nursed me once | P3 |
Was cousin to this fellow if this lawyer | A2 |
Knew this and did he know it I don't know | F |
Had Elenor Murray lived she would have come | E2 |
To ask her cousin's life I know her heart | Q3 |
And at the last I think this was the thing | E |
I thought I'd do exactly what I'd do | V |
If she had lived and asked me disregard | R3 |
Her death and act as if she lived repay | S3 |
Her dead hands which in life had saved my life | L3 |
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Now dear your eyes have tears I know believe me | I |
I had no romance with this Elenor Murray | I |
Good Lord it's one o'clock I must to bed | J |
- | |
You get my story Merival Do you think | M2 |
A softness in the heart went to the brain | T3 |
And softened that Well now I stress two things | U3 |
I can't endure defeat nor bear to see | I |
An ardent spirit thwarted What I've achieved | V3 |
Has been through will that would not bend and so | F |
To see that in another wins my love | W3 |
And my support Now take this Elenor Murray | I |
She had a will like mine she worked her way | S3 |
As I have done And just to hear that she | I |
Had planned to see me ask for clemency | I |
For this condemned degenerate made me say | S3 |
Shall I let death defeat her Take the breach | X3 |
And make her death no matter in my course | Y3 |
For as I live if she had come to me | I |
I had done that I did And why was that | V2 |
No romance Never that Yet human love | W3 |
As friend can keep for friend in this our life | L3 |
I felt for Elenor Murray and for this | Z3 |
It was her will that would not take defeat | A4 |
Devotion to her work and in my case | B4 |
This depth of friendship welling in her heart | Q3 |
For human beings that I shared in there | G3 |
Gave tireless healing to her nursing hands | C4 |
And saved my life And for a life a life | L3 |
This criminal will live some years we'll say | S3 |
Were better dead All right He'll cost the state | K |
Say twenty thousand dollars What is that | V2 |
Contrasted with the cost to me if I | I2 |
Had let him hang There is a bank account | D4 |
Economies in the realm of thought to watch | E4 |
And don't you think the souls let's call them souls | F4 |
Of these avenging law abiding folk | G4 |
These souls of the community all in all | H4 |
Will be improved for hearing that I did | Q |
A human thing and profit more therefrom | I |
Than though that sense of balance in their souls | F4 |
Struck for the thought of crime avenged the law | I4 |
Fulfilled and vindicated Yes it's true | V |
And Merival spoke up and said It's true | V |
I understand your story and I'm glad | N3 |
It's like you and I'll tell my jury first | J4 |
And they will scatter it what moved in you | V |
And how this Elenor Murray saved a life | L3 |
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- | |
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The talk of waste in human life was constant | K4 |
As Coroner Merival took evidence | P3 |
At Elenor Murray's inquest Everyone | G |
Could think of waste in some one's life as well | L4 |
As in his own | M4 |
John Scofield knew the girl | S |
Had worked for Arthur Fouche her grandfather | A2 |
And knew what course his life took how his fortune | G |
Was wasted dwindled down | N4 |
- | |
Remembering | E |
A talk he heard between this Elenor Murray | I |
And Arthur Fouche her grandfather he spoke | G4 |
To Coroner Merival on the street one day | S3 |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
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