Mostly Slavonic Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB CCDDEEFF GGHHEEEIJ KKLLMMFF NNOOBBPPEE BBQQ RSTT UUUVWXXNNCCFFYYY EE ZZZFFFF EEEEFFFYY AY A2A2FFYYZZFFFF B2B2FFC2C2BBYYYYYYYY FFNNCCCC D2D2D2FFA2A2FF AE2 YF2I | A |
Peter Michaelov | B |
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It was Peter the Barbarian put an apron in his bag | C |
And rolled up the honoured bundle that Australians call a swag | C |
And he tramped from Darkest Russia that it might be dark no more | D |
Dreaming of a port and shipping as no monarch dreamed before | D |
Of a home and education and of children staunch and true | E |
Like my father in the fifties and his name was Peter too | E |
He could build a ship or fiddle out of wood or bark or hide | F |
Sail one round the world and play the other one at eventide | F |
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Russia s Peter not my father went to Holland in disguise | G |
Where he laboured as a shipwright underneath those gloomy skies | G |
Later on he went to England which the Kaiser now condemns | H |
Where he studied as a ship smith by old Deptford on the Thames | H |
And no doubt he knew the rope walk and the rope s end too he knew | E |
Learned to build a ship and sail it learned the business through and through | E |
And I d like to say my father mastered navigation too | E |
He was born across in Norway educated fairly well | I |
And he grafted in a ship yard by the Port of Arundel | J |
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Peter Michaelov not Larsen his work was by no means done | K |
For he learned to make a ploughshare and he learned to make a gun | K |
Russian soldiers must have clothing so he laboured at the looms | L |
And he studied after hours building forts and building booms | L |
He would talk with all and sundry merchants and adventurers | M |
Whaling men from Nova Scotia and with ancient mariners | M |
Studied military systems of which Austria s was the best | F |
Hospitals and even bedlams class distinctions and the rest | F |
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There was nothing he neglected that was useful to be known | N |
And he even studied Wowsers who had no creed of his own | N |
And lest all that he accomplished should as miracles appear | O |
It must always be remembered he d a secret Fund for Beer | O |
When he tramped to toil and exile he was only twenty five | B |
With a greater grander object than had any man alive | B |
And perhaps the lad was bullied and was sad for all we know | P |
Though it isn t very likely that he d take a second blow | P |
He had brains amongst the brainless and what that thing means I knew | E |
For before I found my kingdom I had slaved in workshops too | E |
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But they never dreamed the brainless boors that used to sneer and scoff | B |
That the dreamy lad beside them known as Dutchy Mickyloff | B |
Was a genius and a poet and a Man no matter which | Q |
Was the Czar of all the Russias Peter Michaelovich | Q |
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Sweden struck ere he was ready filled the land with blood and tears | R |
But he broke the power of Sweden though it took him nine long years | S |
For he had to train his army He was great in training men | T |
And no foreign foe in Russia have had easy times since then | T |
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Then the Port as we must have one His a work of mighty drains | U |
Ours of irrigation channels or it should be on the plains | U |
So he brought from many countries strong adventures with brains | U |
It was marshes to horizons it was pestilential bogs | V |
It was stoneless it was treeless so he brought Norwegian logs | W |
Twas a land without a people twas a land without a law | X |
But the lonely Gulf of Finland heard the axe and heard the saw | X |
He compelled the population to that desert land and lone | N |
Shifted them by tens of thousands as we ll have to shift our own | N |
He imported stone and mortar he supplied the labouring gang | C |
Brought his masons from all Russia let the other towns go hang | C |
Brought his carpenters from Venice they knew how to make a port | F |
Till he heard the church bells ringing in the town of Petersfort | F |
Brought his shipbuilders from Holland built his navy feverishly | Y |
Till the Swedish fleet was shattered and the Baltic routes were free | Y |
And his Port was on the Neva and his Ships were on the sea | Y |
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Petrograd upon the Neva and the Man who saw it through | E |
Stately Canberra on the Cotter and the men who build it too | E |
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Russian Peter was inhuman so the wise historians say | Z |
What s the use of being human in a land like ours to day | Z |
Till a race of stronger people wipe the Sickly Whites away | Z |
Let them have it who will have it those who do not understand | F |
Peter lived and died a savage but he civilized the land | F |
And as it is at present so twas always in the past | F |
Twas his nearest and his dearest that broke Peter s heart at last | F |
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He was more than half a heathen if historians are true | E |
But he used to whack his missus as a Christian ought to do | E |
And he should have done it sooner but that trouble isn t new | E |
We d have saved a lot of bother had we whacked our women too | E |
Peter more than whacked his subjects ere the change was brought about | F |
And in some form or another we shall have to use the knout | F |
If we wish to build a nation else we ll have to do without | F |
And be wretched slaves and exiles homeless in the Southern Sea | Y |
When an Asiatic Nation hath rough hewn our destiny | Y |
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II | A |
The Brandenburgers | Y |
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Things have been mixed up in Europe till there s nothing in a name | A2 |
So it doesn t really matter whence the Brandenburgers came | A2 |
But they did no pioneering as our fathers did of old | F |
Only bullied robbed and murdered till they bought the land with gold | F |
And they settled down in Prussia to the bane of Germany | Y |
With a spike upon the helmet where three brazen balls should be | Y |
And they swaggered swigged and swindled and by bullying held sway | Z |
And they blindly inter married till they re madmen to this day | Z |
And the lovely nights in Munich are as memories of the dead | F |
Night is filled with nameless terrors day is filled with constant dread | F |
But Bavaria the peaceful ere the lurid star is set | F |
She shall lead her neighbours on to pluck the Prussian Eagles yet | F |
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We ll pass over little Denmark as the brave historians can | B2 |
Austria suffered at Sadowa France was sorry at Sedan | B2 |
And for England s acquiescence in the crime she suffers too | F |
Meanwhile Denmark drained her marshes planted grain and battled through | F |
We who never knew what war is who had gold without the pain | C2 |
Never locked a western river that might save a western plain | C2 |
You may say the Danes were pirates and so leave them on the shelf | B |
Given youth and men and money I would pirate some myself | B |
Why should I be so excited for another nation s pains | Y |
I am prejudiced and angry for my forefathers were Danes | Y |
What have I to do with nations Or the battle s lurid stars | Y |
I am Henry son of Peter who was Peter son of Lars | Y |
Lars the son of Nils But never mind from whence our lineage springs | Y |
Yes my forefathers wore helmets but their helmets wore the wings | Y |
There s a feather for your bonnet there is unction for your souls | Y |
And the wings bore us to England and Australia and the Poles | Y |
What did we for little Denmark Well we sent our thousands through | F |
But without the guns or money what could Scandinavia do | F |
It is true of some Australians by the sea or sandwaste lone | N |
That they hold their father s country rather dearer than their own | N |
But the track is plain before them and they know who blazed the track | C |
To the work our Foreign Fathers did in Early Days Out Back | C |
As a mate can do no mean thing in the bushman s creed and song | C |
So a fellow s father s country seems to me can do no wrong | C |
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Where was I The Wrong of Denmark or the chastening of her soul | D2 |
And perhaps her rulers got it where twas needed on the whole | D2 |
Twas the gentlemen of Poland crushed the spirit of the Pole | D2 |
Till he didn t care which nation he was knouted by and served | F |
So the gentlemen of Poland got wiped out as they deserved | F |
Freedom shrieked where was no freedom and perhaps she shrieked for shame | A2 |
But let Kosciusko slumber we ve immortalised his name | A2 |
By the poets and the tenors have our tender souls been wrenched | F |
And on many a suffering Christian Polish Jews have been avenged | F |
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III | A |
The Blue Danube | E2 |
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Where the skies are blue in winter by the Adriatic Sea | Y |
And the summer skies a | F2 |
Henry Lawson
(1)
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