Billy Khaki Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CDCDCECE FFGG HHII JJII HHII KKLL IIMM IIGG CDCDCECEMarching somewhat out of order when the band is cock a hoop | A |
There's a lilting kind of magic in the swagger of the troop | A |
Swinging all aboard the steamer with her nose toward the sea | B |
What is calling Billy Khaki that you're footing it so free | B |
- | |
Though his lines are none too level | C |
And he lacks a bit of style | D |
And he's swanking like the devil | C |
Where the women wave and smile | D |
He will answer with a rifle | C |
Trim and true from stock to bore | E |
Where the comrades crouch and stifle | C |
In the reeking pit of war | E |
- | |
What is calling Billy Khaki There is thunder down the sky | F |
And the merry magpie bugle splits the morning with its cry | F |
While your feet are beating rhythms up the dusty hills and down | G |
And the drums are all a talking in the hollow of the town | G |
- | |
Billy Khaki is't the splendor of the song the kiddies sing | H |
Or the whipping of the flags aloft that sets your heart a swing | H |
Is't the cheering like a paean of the tossing teeming crowds | I |
Or the boom of distant cannon flatly bumping on the clouds | I |
- | |
What's calling calling Billy 'Tis the rattle far away | J |
Of the cavalry at gallop and artillery in play | J |
'Tis the great gun's fierce concussion and the smell of seven hells | I |
When the long ranks go to pieces in the sneezing of the shells | I |
- | |
But your eyes are laughing Billy and a ribald song you sing | H |
While the old men sit and tell us war it is a ghastly thing | H |
When the swift machines are busy and the grim squat fortress nocks | I |
At your bolts as vain as eggs of gulls that spatter on the rocks | I |
- | |
When the horses sweep upon you to complete a sudden rout | K |
Or in fire and smoke and fury some brave regiment goes out | K |
War is cruel Bill and ugly But full well you know the rest | L |
Yet your heart is for the battle and your face is to the west | L |
- | |
For if war is beastly Billy you can picture something worse | I |
There's the wrecking of an empire and its broken people's curse | I |
There are nations reft of freedom and of hope and kindly mirth | M |
And the shadow of an evil black upon the bitter earth | M |
- | |
So we know what's calling Billy 'Tis the spirit of our race | I |
And its stir is in your pulses and its light is on your face | I |
As you march with clipping boot heels through the piping howling town | G |
To uphold the land we live in and to pull a tyrant down | G |
- | |
Thou his lines are none too level | C |
And he's not a whale for style | D |
And he's swanking like the devil | C |
When the women wave and smile | D |
He will answer with a rifle | C |
Trim and true from stuck to bore | E |
When the comrades sit and stifle | C |
In the smoking pit of war | E |
Edward Dyson
(1)
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