Faces In The Street Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCBB DDBBEBB FFBBGBB HHBBIBB JJBBKBB LLBBMBB NNNNJNN OONNNNN PQNNRNN SSNNFNN P NNTNN UUNNENN VVNNWNNThey lie the men who tell us in a loud decisive tone | A |
That want is here a stranger and that misery's unknown | A |
For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet | B |
My window sill is level with the faces in the street | B |
Drifting past drifting past | C |
To the beat of weary feet | B |
While I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street | B |
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And cause I have to sorrow in a land so young and fair | D |
To see upon those faces stamped the marks of Want and Care | D |
I look in vain for traces of the fresh and fair and sweet | B |
In sallow sunken faces that are drifting through the street | B |
Drifting on drifting on | E |
To the scrape of restless feet | B |
I can sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street | B |
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In hours before the dawning dims the starlight in the sky | F |
The wan and weary faces first begin to trickle by | F |
Increasing as the moments hurry on with morning feet | B |
Till like a pallid river flow the faces in the street | B |
Flowing in flowing in | G |
To the beat of hurried feet | B |
Ah I sorrow for the owners of those faces in the street | B |
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The human river dwindles when 'tis past the hour of eight | H |
Its waves go flowing faster in the fear of being late | H |
But slowly drag the moments whilst beneath the dust and heat | B |
The city grinds the owners of the faces in the street | B |
Grinding body grinding soul | I |
Yielding scarce enough to eat | B |
Oh I sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street | B |
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And then the only faces till the sun is sinking down | J |
Are those of outside toilers and the idlers of the town | J |
Save here and there a face that seems a stranger in the street | B |
Tells of the city's unemployed upon his weary beat | B |
Drifting round drifting round | K |
To the tread of listless feet | B |
Ah My heart aches for the owner of that sad face in the street | B |
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And when the hours on lagging feet have slowly dragged away | L |
And sickly yellow gaslights rise to mock the going day | L |
Then flowing past my window like a tide in its retreat | B |
Again I see the pallid stream of faces in the street | B |
Ebbing out ebbing out | M |
To the drag of tired feet | B |
While my heart is aching dumbly for the faces in the street | B |
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And now all blurred and smirched with vice the day's sad pages end | N |
For while the short large hours' toward the longer small hours' trend | N |
With smiles that mock the wearer and with words that half entreat | N |
Delilah pleads for custom at the corner of the street | N |
Sinking down sinking down | J |
Battered wreck by tempests beat | N |
A dreadful thankless trade is hers that Woman of the Street | N |
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But ah to dreader things than these our fair young city comes | O |
For in its heart are growing thick the filthy dens and slums | O |
Where human forms shall rot away in sties for swine unmeet | N |
And ghostly faces shall be seen unfit for any street | N |
Rotting out rotting out | N |
For the lack of air and meat | N |
In dens of vice and horror that are hidden from the street | N |
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I wonder would the apathy of wealthy men endure | P |
Were all their windows level with the faces of the Poor | Q |
Ah Mammon's slaves your knees shall knock your hearts in terror beat | N |
When God demands a reason for the sorrows of the street | N |
The wrong things and the bad things | R |
And the sad things that we meet | N |
In the filthy lane and alley and the cruel heartless street | N |
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I left the dreadful corner where the steps are never still | S |
And sought another window overlooking gorge and hill | S |
But when the night came dreary with the driving rain and sleet | N |
They haunted me the shadows of those faces in the street | N |
Flitting by flitting by | F |
Flitting by with noiseless feet | N |
And with cheeks but little paler than the real ones in the street | N |
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Once I cried Oh God Almighty if Thy might doth still endure | P |
Now show me in a vision for the wrongs of Earth a cure ' | - |
And lo with shops all shuttered I beheld a city's street | N |
And in the warning distance heard the tramp of many feet | N |
Coming near coming near | T |
To a drum's dull distant beat | N |
And soon I saw the army that was marching down the street | N |
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Then like a swollen river that has broken bank and wall | U |
The human flood came pouring with the red flags over all | U |
And kindled eyes all blazing bright with revolution's heat | N |
And flashing swords reflecting rigid faces in the street | N |
Pouring on pouring on | E |
To a drum's loud threatening beat | N |
And the war hymns and the cheering of the people in the street | N |
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And so it must be while the world goes rolling round its course | V |
The warning pen shall write in vain the warning voice grow hoarse | V |
But not until a city feels Red Revolution's feet | N |
Shall its sad people miss awhile the terrors of the street | N |
The dreadful everlasting strife | W |
For scarcely clothes and meat | N |
In that pent track of living death the city's cruel street | N |
Henry Lawson
(1)
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