On A Street Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABACDEDE FGFGHIHI JKJKELEL MNMNOPOP QRQRSTST UNUNLPLP VWVWGXGX JTJTYZYZ A2B2A2B2C2D2C2E2 VDVDF2G2F2G2 H2DH2DI2WI2W HJ2HJ2MK2MK2 EOEOTL2TL2

I dread that street its haggard faceA
I have not seen for eight long yearsB
A mother's curse is on the placeA
There's blood my reader in her tearsC
No child of man shall ever trackD
Through filthy dust the singer's feetE
A fierce old memory drags me backD
I hate its name I dread that streetE
-
Upon the lap of green sweet landsF
Whose months are like your English MaysG
I try to hide in Lethe's sandsF
The bitter old Bohemian daysG
But sorrow speaks in singing leafH
And trouble talketh in the tideI
The skirts of a stupendous griefH
Are trailing ever at my sideI
-
I will not say who suffered thereJ
'Tis best the name aloof to keepK
Because the world is very fairJ
Its light should sing the dark to sleepK
But let me whisper in that streetE
A woman faint through want of breadL
Has often pawned the quilt and sheetE
And wept upon a barren bedL
-
How gladly would I change my themeM
Or cease the song and steal awayN
But on the hill and by the streamM
A ghost is with me night and dayN
A dreadful darkness full of wildO
Chaotic visions comes to meP
I seem to hear a dying childO
Its mother's face I seem to seeP
-
Here surely on this bank of bloomQ
My verse with shine would ever flowR
But ah it comes the rented roomQ
With man and wife who suffered soR
From flower and leaf there is no hintS
I only see a sharp distressT
A lady in a faded printS
A careworn writer for the pressT
-
I only hear the brutal curseU
Of landlord clamouring for his payN
And yonder is the pauper's hearseU
That comes to take a child awayN
Apart and with the half grey headL
Of sudden age again I seeP
The father writing by the deadL
To earn the undertaker's feeP
-
No tear at all is asked for himV
A drunkard well deserves his lifeW
But voice will quiver eyes grow dimV
For her the patient pure young wifeW
The gentle girl of better daysG
As timid as a mountain fawnX
Who used to choose untrodden waysG
And place at night her rags in pawnX
-
She could not face the lighted squareJ
Or show the street her poor thin dressT
In one close chamber bleak and bareJ
She hid her burden of distressT
Her happy schoolmates used to driveY
On gaudy wheels the town aboutZ
The meat that keeps a dog aliveY
She often had to go withoutZ
-
I tell you this is not a taleA2
Conceived by me but bitter truthB2
Bohemia knows it pinched and paleA2
Beside the pyre of burnt out youthB2
These eyes of mine have often seenC2
The sweet girl wife in winters rudeD2
Steal out at night through courts uncleanC2
To hunt about for chips of woodE2
-
Have I no word at all for himV
Who used down fetid lanes to slinkD
And squat in tap room corners grimV
And drown his thoughts in dregs of drinkD
This much I'll say that when the flameF2
Of reason reassumed its forceG2
The hell the Christian fears to nameF2
Was heaven to his fierce remorseG2
-
Just think of him beneath the banH2
And steeped in sorrow to the neckD
Without a friend a feeble manH2
In failing health a human wreckD
With all his sense and scholarshipI2
How could he face his fading wifeW
The devil never lifted whipI2
With thongs like those that scourged his lifeW
-
But He in whom the dying thiefH
Upon the Cross did place his trustJ2
Forgets the sin and feels the griefH
And lifts the sufferer from the dustJ2
And now because I have a dreamM
The man and woman found the lightK2
A glory burns upon the streamM
With gold and green the woods are brightK2
-
But still I hate that haggard streetE
Its filthy courts its alleys wildO
In dreams of it I always meetE
The phantom of a wailing childO
The name of it begets distressT
Ah song be silent show no moreL2
The lady in the perished dressT
The scholar on the tap room floorL2

Henry Kendall



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