Constable M-carty-s Investigations Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACDEDE CFCFGHGH GIGIJKLK GMGNGOGO PQPQCNCN PRPRPGPG GGGGPCPC GSGSCCCC CTCTGGGG GGGGCPCP GGGGGNGN GCGCCUCU GGGGGSGSMost unpleasantly adjacent to the haunts of lower orders | A |
Stood a terrace in the city when the current year began | B |
And a notice indicated there were vacancies for boarders | A |
In the middle house and lodgings for a single gentleman | C |
Now a singular observer could have seen but few attractions | D |
Whether in the house or missus or the notice or the street | E |
But at last there came a lodger whose appearances and actions | D |
Puzzled Constable M Carty the policeman on the beat | E |
- | |
He the single gent was wasted almost to emaciation | C |
And his features were the palest that M Carty ever saw | F |
And these indications pointing to a past of dissipation | C |
Greatly strengthened the suspicions of the agent of the law | F |
He the lodger hang the pronoun seemed to like the stormy weather | G |
When the elements in battle kept it up a little late | H |
Yet he d wander in the moonlight when the stars were close together | G |
Taking ghostly consolation in a visionary state | H |
- | |
He would walk the streets at midnight when the storm king raised his banner | G |
Walk without his old umbrella wave his arms above his head | I |
Or he d fold them tight and mutter in a wild disjointed manner | G |
While the town was wrapped in slumber and he should have been in bed | I |
Said the constable on duty Shure Oi wonther phwat his trade is | J |
And the constable would watch him from the shadow of a wall | K |
But he never picked a pocket and he ne er accosted ladies | L |
And the constable was puzzled what to make of him at all | K |
- | |
Now M Carty had arrested more than one notorious dodger | G |
He had heard of men afflicted with the strangest kind of fads | M |
But he couldn t fix the station or the business of the lodger | G |
Who at times would chum with cadgers and at other times with cads | N |
And the constable would often stand and wonder how the gory | G |
Sheol the stranger got his living for he loafed the time away | O |
And he often sought a hillock when the sun went down in glory | G |
Just as if he was a mourner at the burial of the day | O |
- | |
Mac had noticed that the lodger did a mighty lot of smoking | P |
And could stow away a long un never winking so he could | Q |
And M Carty once at midnight came upon the lodger poking | P |
Round about suspicious alleys where the common houses stood | Q |
Yet the constable had seen him in a class above suspicion | C |
Seen him welcomed with effusion by a dozen toney gents | N |
Seen him driving in the buggy of a rising politician | C |
Thro the gateway of the member s toney private residence | N |
- | |
And the constable off duty had observed the lodger slipping | P |
Down a lane to where the river opened on the ocean wide | R |
Where he d stand for hours gazing at the distant anchor d shipping | P |
But he never took his coat off so it wasn t suicide | R |
For the constable had noticed that a man who s filled with loathing | P |
For his selfish fellow creatures and the evil things that be | G |
Will for some mysterious reason shed a portion of his clothing | P |
Ere he takes his first and final plunge into eternity | G |
- | |
And M Carty once at midnight be it said to his abasement | G |
Left his beat and climbed a railing of considerable height | G |
Just to watch the lodger s shadow on the curtain of his casement | G |
While the little room was lighted in the listening hours of night | G |
Now at first the shadow hinted that the substance sat inditing | P |
Now it indicated toothache or the headache and again | C |
Twould exaggerate the gestures of a dipsomaniac fighting | P |
Those original conceptions of a whisky sodden brain | C |
- | |
Then the constable retreating scratched his head and muttered Sorra | G |
Wan of me can undershtand it But Oi ll keep me oi on him | S |
Divil take him and his tantrums he s a lunatic begorra | G |
Or if he was up to mischief he d be sure to douse the glim | S |
But M Carty wasn t easy for he had a vague suspicion | C |
That a skame was being plotted and he thought the matter down | C |
Till his mind was pretty certain that the business was sedition | C |
And the man in league with others sought to overthrow the Crown | C |
- | |
But in spite of observation Mac received no information | C |
And was forced to stay inactive being puzzled for a charge | T |
That the lodger was a madman seemed the only explanation | C |
Tho the house would scarcely harbour such a lunatic at large | T |
His appearance failed to warrant apprehension as a vagrant | G |
Tho twas getting very shabby as the constable could see | G |
But M Carty in the meantime hoped to catch him in a flagrant | G |
Breach of peace or the intention to commit a felony | G |
- | |
For digression there is leisure and it is the writer s pleasure | G |
Just to pause a while and ponder on a painful legal fact | G |
Being forced to say in sorrow and a line of doubtful measure | G |
That there s nothing so elastic as the cruel Vagrant Act | G |
Now M Carty knew his duty and was brave as any lion | C |
But he dreaded being landed in an influential bog | P |
As the chances were he would be if the man he had his eye on | C |
Was a person of importance who was travelling incog | P |
- | |
Want of sleep and over worry seemed to tell upon M Carty | G |
He was thirsty more than ever but his appetite resigned | G |
He was previously reckoned as a jolly chap and hearty | G |
But the mystery was lying like a mountain on his mind | G |
Tho he tried his best he couldn t get a hold upon the lodger | G |
For the latter s antecedents weren t known to the police | N |
They considered that the devil was a dark and artful dodger | G |
Who was scheming under cover for the downfall of the peace | N |
- | |
Twas a simple explanation though M Carty didn t know it | G |
Which with half his penetration he might easily have seen | C |
For the object of his dangerous suspicions was a poet | G |
Who was not so widely famous as he thought he should have been | C |
And the constable grew thinner till one morning little dhramin | C |
Av the sword of revelation that was leapin from its sheath | U |
He alighted on some verses in the columns of the Frayman | C |
Wid the christian name an surname av the lodger onderneath | U |
- | |
Now M Carty and the poet are as brother is to brother | G |
Or at least as brothers should be and they very often meet | G |
On the lonely block at midnight and they wink at one another | G |
Disappearing down the by way of a shanty in the street | G |
And the poet s name you re asking well the ground is very tender | G |
You must wait until the public put the gilt upon the name | S |
Till a glorious sorrow drowning and perhaps a final bender | G |
Heralds his triumphant entrance to the thunder halls of Fame | S |
Henry Lawson
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