Old King Cole Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCE FGFGHIJI KLKLMNMN OPQPRHRH STSTUIUI VUVWUUUU UAUAUQUQ WXWXYZYZ A2B2A2B2WUWU UC2UC2D2E2D2E2In Tilbury Town did Old King Cole | A |
A wise old age anticipate | B |
Desiring with his pipe and bowl | A |
No Khan's extravagant estate | B |
No crown annoyed his honest head | C |
No fiddlers three were called or needed | D |
For two disastrous heirs instead | C |
Made music more than ever three did | E |
- | |
Bereft of her with whom his life | F |
Was harmony without a flaw | G |
He took no other for a wife | F |
Nor sighed for any that he saw | G |
And if he doubted his two sons | H |
And heirs Alexis and Evander | I |
He might have been as doubtful once | J |
Of Robert Burns and Alexander | I |
- | |
Alexis in his early youth | K |
Began to steal from old and young | L |
Likewise Evander and the truth | K |
Was like a bad taste on his tongue | L |
Born thieves and liars their affair | M |
Seemed only to be tarred with evil | N |
The most insufferable pair | M |
Of scamps that ever cheered the devil | N |
- | |
The world went on their fame went on | O |
And they went on from bad to worse | P |
Till goaded hot with nothing done | Q |
And each accoutred with a curse | P |
The friends of Old King Cole by twos | R |
And fours and sevens and elevens | H |
Pronounced unalterable views | R |
Of doings that were not of heaven's | H |
- | |
And having learned again whereby | S |
Their baleful zeal had come about | T |
King Cole met many a wrathful eye | S |
So kindly that its wrath went out | T |
Or partly out Say what they would | U |
He seemed the more to court their candor | I |
But never told what kind of good | U |
Was in Alexis and Evander | I |
- | |
And Old King Cole with many a puff | V |
That haloed his urbanity | U |
Would smoke till he had smoked enough | V |
And listen most attentively | W |
He beamed as with an inward light | U |
That had the Lord's assurance in it | U |
And once a man was there all night | U |
Expecting something every minute | U |
- | |
But whether from too little thought | U |
Or too much fealty to the bowl | A |
A dim reward was all he got | U |
For sitting up with Old King Cole | A |
Though mine the father mused aloud | U |
Are not the sons I would have chosen | Q |
Shall I less evilly endowed | U |
By their infirmity be frozen | Q |
- | |
They'll have a bad end I'll agree | W |
But I was never born to groan | X |
For I can see what I can see | W |
And I'm accordingly alone | X |
With open heart and open door | Y |
I love my friends I like my neighbors | Z |
But if I try to tell you more | Y |
Your doubts will overmatch my labors | Z |
- | |
This pipe would never make me calm | A2 |
This bowl my grief would never drown | B2 |
For grief like mine there is no balm | A2 |
In Gilead or in Tilbury Town | B2 |
And if I see what I can see | W |
I know not any way to blind it | U |
Nor more if any way may be | W |
For you to grope or fly to find it | U |
- | |
There may be room for ruin yet | U |
And ashes for a wasted love | C2 |
Or like One whom you may forget | U |
I may have meat you know not of | C2 |
And if I'd rather live than weep | D2 |
Meanwhile do you find that surprising | E2 |
Why bless my soul the man's asleep | D2 |
That's good The sun will soon be rising | E2 |
Edwin Arlington Robinson
(1)
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