Music In The Flat Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDCEE FFGGHH IIJJKK LLMMHH JJCCNNWhen Tom and I were married we took a little flat | A |
I had a taste for singing and playing and all that | A |
And Tom who loved to hear me said he hoped | B |
I would not stop | C |
All practice like so many wives who let their | D |
music drop | C |
So I resolved to set apart an hour or two each day | E |
To keeping vocal chords and hands in trim to sing and play | E |
- | |
The second morning I had been for half and hour or more | F |
At work on Haydn s masses when a tap came at my door | F |
A nurse who wore a dainty cap and apron and a smile | G |
Ran down to ask if I would cease my music for awhile | G |
The lady in the flat above was very ill she said | H |
And the sound of my piano was distracting to her head | H |
- | |
A fortnight s exercises lost ere I began them when | I |
The following morning at my door there came that tap again | I |
A woman with an anguished face implored me to forego | J |
My music for some days to come a man was dead below | J |
I shut down my piano till the corpse had left the house | K |
And spoke to Tom in whispers and was quiet as a mouse | K |
- | |
A week of labour limbered up my stiffened hand and voice | L |
I stole an extra hour from sleep to practice and rejoice | L |
When ting a ling the door bell rang a discord in my trill | M |
The baby in the flat across was very very ill | M |
For ten long days that infant s life was hanging by a thread | H |
And all that time my instrument was silent as the dead | H |
- | |
So pain and death and sickness came in one perpetual row | J |
When babies were not born above then tenants died below | J |
The funeral over underneath some one fell ill on top | C |
And begged me for the love of God to let my music drop | C |
When trouble went not up or down it stalked across the hall | N |
And so in spite of my resolve I do not play at all | N |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(1)
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