Booth's Drum Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCC DEFGGHF IIFFDDDFFF JJKKLLMMM NNOOEEEEE GGPPQQQ MMLLRRSS EETTDD UPVPWFWFDThey were ratty they were hooted by the meanest and the least | A |
When they woke the Drum of Glory long ago in London East | A |
They were often mobbed by hoodlums they were few but unafraid | B |
And their Lassies were insulted but they banged the drum and prayed | B |
Prayed in public for the sinners prayed in private for release | C |
Till they saved some brawny lumpers then they banged the drum in peace | C |
Saved some prize fighter and burglars and they banged the drum in peace | C |
- | |
Booth's Drum | D |
He was hook nosed he was scrawny | E |
He was nothing of a Don | F |
And his business ways seemed Yiddish | G |
And his speeches kid or kiddish | G |
And we doubted his convictions | H |
But his drum is going on | F |
- | |
Oh they drummed it ever onward with old Blood and Fire unfurled | I |
And they drummed it ever outward to the corners of the world | I |
Till they banged the drum in Greenland and they banged in Ispahan | F |
And they banged it round to India and China and Japan | F |
And they banged it through the Islands where each seasoned Son of Rum | D |
Took them for new fangled Jim Jams when he heard the Army Drum | D |
For a bran' new brand of Horrors when he saw the Army come | D |
So they banged it in the desert and they banged in the snow | F |
They'd have banged the Drum to Mecca with the shadow of a show | F |
But Mohammed cut their heads off so they had to let it go | F |
- | |
Somewhere in the early eighties they had banged the drum to Bourke | J |
Where the job of fighting Satan was white hot and dusty work | J |
Oh the Local Lass was withered in the heat that bakes and glares | K |
And we sent her food and firewood but took small heed of her prayers | K |
We were blasphemous and beery we were free from Creed or Care | L |
Till they sent their prettiest Lassies and they broke our centre there | L |
So that moderately sober we could stand to hear them sing | M |
And we'd chaff their Testifiers and throw quids into the ring | M |
Never less than bobs or dollars sometimes quids into the ring | M |
- | |
They have stormed our sinful cities banged for all that they were worth | N |
From Port Darwin to Port Melbourne and from Sydney round to Perth | N |
We'd no need for them or woman when we were all right and well | O |
But they took us out of prison and they took us out of Hell | O |
And they helped our fallen sisters who went down for such as we | E |
And our widows and our orphans in distress and poverty | E |
And neglected wives and children of the worst of us that be | E |
And they made us fit for Glory or another Glorious Spree | E |
So I rather think there's something that is up to you or me | E |
- | |
Oh the Blindness of the Future Ah we never reckoned much | G |
That they'd beat the quids we gave them into bayonets and such | G |
That the coin would be devoted when our world was looking blue | P |
To another kind of orphan wife or child or widow too | P |
But the times have changed a sudden and the past is very dim | Q |
They Have Found a Real Devil and They're Going After Him | Q |
With a Bible and a Rifle they are going after him | Q |
- | |
For the old Salvation Army and their Country and their King | M |
They are marching to the trenches shouting Comrades Let us Sing | M |
They'll find foreign Army soldiers here and there and everywhere | L |
Who will speak their tongue and help them And they'll surely breathe a prayer | L |
For the Spy before they shoot him and another when he's still | R |
And they're going to fire a volley in the Land of Kaiser Bill | R |
But when all is done and quiet as before they march away | S |
They will kneel about their banner saying Brethren Let us pray | S |
- | |
They have long used army rank terms and oh say what it shall be | E |
When a few come back the real thing and when one comes back V C | E |
They will bang the drum at Crow's Nest they will bang it on the Shore | T |
They will bang the drum in Kent street as they never banged before | T |
And At Last they'll frighten Satan from the Mansion and the Slum | D |
He'll have never heard till that time such a Banging of the Drum | D |
- | |
He was lonely with his thousands | U |
Lonely in his household too | P |
For his children had deserted | V |
And his captains not a few | P |
He was old and white and feeble | W |
And his sight was nearly gone | F |
And he could not see his people | W |
But his drum is rolling on | F |
Booth's Drum | D |
Henry Lawson
(1)
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