Waiting For Water Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCCD CECEFGFFG FHFHICIIC FJFJKIKKI CHCHCGCCG GLGLMNMMN GOGOIPIIP GGGGFGFFG CCCCCCCCC IQIQMGMMG GGGGCRCCR CICICGCCG FMFMFDFFD| TWAS old Flynn the identity told us | A |
| That the creek always ran pretty high | B |
| But that fossicking veteran sold us | A |
| And he lied as his quality lie | B |
| Through a tangle of ranges and ridges | C |
| Down a track that is blazed with our hide | D |
| Over creeks minus crossings and bridges | C |
| High and low mere impertinent midges | C |
| Trying falls with the mighty Divide | D |
| - | |
| We came hauling the boxes and stampers | C |
| Or just nipping them in with a winch | E |
| Now and then in unfortunate scampers | C |
| Missing smash by the eighth of an inch | E |
| Round the spurs very daintily crawling | F |
| With one team pulling out in a row | G |
| And another lot heavenward hauling | F |
| Lest the whole bag of tricks should go sprawling | F |
| Into regions unheard of below | G |
| - | |
| We came through with the shanks and the shafting | F |
| And the frames and the wonderful wheel | H |
| Then we put in a month of hard grafting | F |
| Ere we nailed down the last scrap of deal | H |
| She beat true and with scarce a vibration | I |
| And we voted her queen of the mills | C |
| And a push from the wide desolation | I |
| Drifted in to our jollification | I |
| When her drumming was heard in the hills | C |
| - | |
| Now the discs by the cam shaft are rusting | F |
| And the stamps in the boxes are still | J |
| And a silence that s deep and disgusting | F |
| Seems to hang like a pall on the mill | J |
| Just a fortnight she ran then she rested | K |
| And we ve little to do but complain | I |
| For a bird in the feed pipe has nested | K |
| And we ve spent every stiver invested | K |
| And are praying for tucker and rain | I |
| - | |
| Billy s Creek theme of eloquent fables | C |
| Drips like sweat on the breast of the wheel | H |
| And the blankets are dry on the tables | C |
| And the sluice box is warped like an eel | H |
| Sudden dust clouds run lunatic races | C |
| In the red rocky bed down below | G |
| And the porcupine scrambles in places | C |
| Where Flinn swears by the faith he embraces | C |
| Fourteen inches of water should flow | G |
| - | |
| For a time we were proof against sorrow | G |
| And we harboured a cheerful belief | L |
| In the plenteous rains of to morrow | G |
| As we belted away at the reef | L |
| We piled quartz in the paddocks and hopper | M |
| And the pack horse came in once a week | N |
| Now our credit is not worth a copper | M |
| At the township and highly improper | M |
| Is the language the storekeepers speak | N |
| - | |
| We no longer talk brightly or snivel | G |
| Of our luck but we loaf very hard | O |
| Too disgusted to care to be civil | G |
| And too lazy to look at a card | O |
| Only George finds some slight consolation | I |
| Crushing prospects a couple a day | P |
| And then proving by multiplication | I |
| How much metal is in the formation | I |
| And the divvies she ll probably pay | P |
| - | |
| But our leisure is qualified slightly | G |
| By the cattle from over the Fly | G |
| Who have taken to pegging out nightly | G |
| In our limited water supply | G |
| And the snakes have assisted in keeping | F |
| Things alive for the man you ll agree | G |
| Will be spry who may find he s been sleeping | F |
| With a tiger or chance on one creeping | F |
| In the water he wanted for tea | G |
| - | |
| Though our sweltering sky never changes | C |
| Squatter Clark up at Crowfoot complains | C |
| That prospectors out over the ranges | C |
| Have been chased out of camp by the rains | C |
| Veal the Methodist preacher at Spence s | C |
| Who the Cousin Jacks say is some tuss | C |
| As a rain making parson commences | C |
| To enlarge on our sins and offences | C |
| And to blame all his failures on us | C |
| - | |
| We don t go to his church down the mountain | I |
| Seven miles is a wearisome trot | Q |
| With the glass playing up like a fountain | I |
| And the prayers correspondingly hot | Q |
| So on Sunday each suffering sinner | M |
| Has a simple convivial spree | G |
| A roast porcupine maybe for dinner | M |
| For we daily grow thinner and thinner | M |
| On the week s bread and treacle and tea | G |
| - | |
| We ve been scared too of late by Golightly | G |
| Him who kept up his chin best of all | G |
| And predicted with confidence nightly | G |
| Heavy rains that neglected to fall | G |
| And enlarged on the sure indications | C |
| While we listened and wearily groaned | R |
| Of tremendous climatic sensations | C |
| Fearful tempests and great inundations | C |
| That it happened were always postponed | R |
| - | |
| He s gone daft through our many reverses | C |
| Or the sun has got on to his brain | I |
| For he cowers all day and he curses | C |
| To a fretful and wearing refrain | I |
| And at midnight he dolefully screeches | C |
| In the gloom of the desolate mill | G |
| Or he goes in his shirt making speeches | C |
| To the man in the moon whom he reaches | C |
| From the summit of Poverty Hill | G |
| - | |
| So we re waiting and watching and longing | F |
| With an impotent bitter desire | M |
| And new troubles and old ones come thronging | F |
| Drought and fever and famine and fire | M |
| And we know our misfortunes reviewing | F |
| All the pangs that in Hades betide | D |
| Where the damned sit eternally stewing | F |
| And through days never ending are suing | F |
| For the water that s ever denied | D |
Edward George Dyson
(1)
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About Waiting For Water
Waiting For Water is a poem by Edward George Dyson. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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