Dear Old London Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCDDBA EEFFGGB HHIIJJB KKLLMMB NNOOEEB PPQQRRB| When I was broke in London in the fall of ' | A |
| I chanced to spy in Oxford Street this tantalizing sign | B |
| 'A Splendid Horace cheap for Cash ' Of course I had to look | C |
| Upon the vaunted bargain and it was a noble book | C |
| A finer one I 've never seen nor can I hope to see | D |
| The first edition richly bound and clean as clean can be | D |
| And just to think for three pounds ten I might have had that Pine | B |
| When I was broke in London in the fall of ' | A |
| - | |
| Down at Noseda's in the Strand I found one fateful day | E |
| A portrait that I pined for as only maniac may | E |
| A print of Madame Vestris she flourished years ago | F |
| Was Bartolozzi's daughter and a thoroughbred you know | F |
| A clean and handsome print it was and cheap at thirty bob | G |
| That 's what I told the salesman as I choked a rising sob | G |
| But I hung around Noseda's as it were a holy shrine | B |
| When I was broke in London in the fall of ' | - |
| - | |
| At Davey's in Great Russell Street were autographs galore | H |
| And Mr Davey used to let me con that precious store | H |
| Sometimes I read what warriors wrote sometimes a king's command | I |
| But oftener still a poet's verse writ in a meagre hand | I |
| Lamb Byron Addison and Burns Pope Johnson Swift and Scott | J |
| It needed but a paltry sum to comprehend the lot | J |
| Yet though Friend Davey marked 'em down what could I but decline | B |
| For I was broke in London in the fall of ' | - |
| - | |
| Of antique swords and spears I saw a vast and dazzling heap | K |
| That Curio Fenton offered me at prices passing cheap | K |
| And oh the quaint old bureaus and the warming pans of brass | L |
| And the lovely hideous freaks I found in pewter and in glass | L |
| And oh the sideboards candlesticks the cracked old china plates | M |
| The clocks and spoons from Amsterdam that antedate all dates | M |
| Of such superb monstrosities I found an endless mine | B |
| When I was broke in London in the fall of ' | - |
| - | |
| O ye that hanker after boons that others idle by | N |
| The battered things that please the soul though they may vex the eye | N |
| The silver plate and crockery all sanctified with grime | O |
| The oaken stuff that has defied the tooth of envious Time | O |
| The musty tomes the speckled prints the mildewed bills of play | E |
| And other costly relics of malodorous decay | E |
| Ye only can appreciate what agony was mine | B |
| When I was broke in London in the fall of ' | - |
| - | |
| When in the course of natural things I go to my reward | P |
| Let no imposing epitaph my martyrdoms record | P |
| Neither in Hebrew Latin Greek nor any classic tongue | Q |
| Let my ten thousand triumphs over human griefs be sung | Q |
| But in plain Anglo Saxon that he may know who seeks | R |
| What agonizing pangs I 've had while on the hunt for freaks | R |
| Let there be writ upon the slab that marks my grave this line | B |
| 'Deceased was broke in London in the fall of ' ' | - |
Eugene Field
(1)
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About Dear Old London
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