Nemesis Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AA BBCCDD EEFFGG HHIIGG JJKKLL MNOOPP QQRRSS OTUUOT VVWWXYA | |
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It is night time when the saddest and the darkest memories haunt | B |
When outside the printing office the most glaring posters flaunt | B |
When the love wrong is accomplished And I think of things and mark | C |
That the blackest lies are written told and printed after dark | C |
Tis the time of late editions It is night when as of old | D |
Foulest things are done for hatred for ambition love and gold | D |
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Racing from the senseless city down the dull suburban streets | E |
Come again the ragged newsboys yelping with their paltry sheets | E |
Lying posters meaning nothing double columns meaning less | F |
Twisted facts and reckless falsehoods dodges of the Daily Press | F |
In the town the roar and rattle of the great machines once more | G |
Greedy for the extra penny while the Public howls for war | G |
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War because of one poor blunder made in panic far away | H |
While a thousand men were lying on the battlefield to day | H |
Dead heaped on the helpless dying blinded eyes and brains that swim | I |
Parched or choked with their own life blood battered head and broken limb | I |
Wounds too ghastly to be pictured Things to seem like men no more | G |
Crying out to Christ for water and oblivion that is war | G |
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And the poets of the nation singing birds or carrion birds | J |
Bluff with cheap alliteration and the boom of empty words | J |
Catch the crowd with cheating phrases as a jingo laureate flings | K |
Recklessly his high defiance in the grinning teeth of Things | K |
They pretend to lead who follow this day s crowd with lying tact | L |
Let them fling their high defiance in the stony face of Fact | L |
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And so Russia maimed and baited seeing nought but storm to come | M |
Sailed upon a desperate venture cursed by treachery at home | N |
Seeing danger in each shadow thinking doubtless now and then | O |
Of the swift fate of her warship with its seven hundred men | O |
And she struck out in the darkness at the ally of her foe | P |
Struck out blindly as a wounded dying bear might strike a blow | P |
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Ah we well might howl for vengeance we who killed for killing s sake | Q |
Murdered helpless men in daylight in cold blood by no mistake | Q |
We who burnt the homes of women when the nights were cold and damp | R |
We who murdered little children in the concentration camp | R |
When the farmers downed the lion for a season in his pride | S |
Say did Russia take advantage then while England s hands were tied | S |
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Wipe away the blood that binds you struggle to your feet again | O |
Shake them from your shoulders Ivan Ivan nearly mad with pain | T |
You must fight it single handed on the deck or in the trench | U |
Look not to the boorish German Look not to the fickle French | U |
Rather look to blinded England when her sight is clear again | O |
And remember in the future there is chivalry in Spain | T |
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Scoff at Russia on the ocean and her helplessness forget | V |
But on land the braggart Mongol has not done with Ivan yet | V |
He s a fierce and cruel tyrant we are not as others are | W |
But his slaves would die by thousands for their country and the Czar | W |
While a single broken column drags a battery through the mire | X |
And a single battered cruiser has a gun that she can fire | Y |
Henry Lawson
(1)
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