One Hundred And Three Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCBB DDEE FFGG HHBB IIJK BBLL BBMM NOPP QQRR SSTU VVWW XXII YYZZ A2A2B2B2 C2C2D2E2 LLE2E2 F2F2G2G2 H2H2D2E2 I2I2BB RRJ2J2 B2B2XX B2B2BB B2B2B2B2 K2L2M2M2 N2N2J2J2 O2With the frame of a man and the face of a boy and a manner strangely wild | A |
And the great wide wondering innocent eyes of a silent suffering child | A |
With his hideous dress and his heavy boots he drags to Eternity | B |
And the Warder says in a softened tone Keep step One Hundred and Three | B |
Tis a ghastly travesty of drill or a ghastly farce of work | C |
But One Hundred and Three he catches step with a start a shuffle and jerk | C |
Tis slow starvation in separate cells and a widow s son is he | B |
And the widow she drank before he was born Keep step One Hundred and Three | B |
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They shut a man in the four by eight with a six inch slit for air | D |
Twenty three hours of the twenty four to brood on his virtues there | D |
And the dead stone walls and the iron door close in as an iron band | E |
On eyes that followed the distant haze far out on the level land | E |
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Bread and water and hominy and a scrag of meat and a spud | F |
A Bible and thin flat book of rules to cool a strong man s blood | F |
They take the spoon from the cell at night and a stranger might think it odd | G |
But a man might sharpen it on the floor and go to his own Great God | G |
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One Hundred and Three it is hard to believe that you saddled your horse at dawn | H |
There were girls that rode through the bush at eve and girls who lolled on the lawn | H |
There were picnic parties in sunny bays and ships on the shining sea | B |
There were foreign ports in the glorious days Hold up One Hundred and Three | B |
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A man came out at exercise time from one of the cells to day | I |
Twas the ghastly spectre of one I knew and I thought he was far away | I |
We dared not speak but he signed Farewell fare well and I knew by this | J |
And the number stamped on his clothes not sewn that a heavy sentence was his | K |
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Where five men do the work of a boy with warders not to see | B |
It is sad and bad and uselessly mad it is ugly as it can be | B |
From the flower beds laid to fit the gaol in circle and line absurd | L |
To the gilded weathercock on the church agape like a strangled bird | L |
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Agape like a strangled bird in the sun and I wonder what he could see | B |
The Fleet come in and the Fleet go out Hold up One Hundred and Three | B |
The glorious sea and the bays and Bush and the distant mountains blue | M |
Keep step keep step One Hundred and Three for my lines are halting too | M |
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The great round church with its volume of sound where we dare not turn our eyes | N |
They take us there from our separate hells to sing of Paradise | O |
In all the creeds there is hope and doubt but of this there is no doubt | P |
That starving prisoners faint in church and the warders carry them out | P |
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They double lock at four o clock and the warders leave their keys | Q |
And the Governor strolls with a friend at eve through his stone conservatories | Q |
Their window slits are like idiot mouths with square stone chins adrop | R |
And the weather stains for the dribble and the dead flat foreheads atop | R |
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No light save the lights in the yard beneath the clustering lights of the Lord | S |
And the lights turned in to the window slits of the Observation Ward | S |
They eat their meat with their fingers there in a madness starved and dull | T |
Oh the padded cells and the O b s are nearly always full | U |
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Rules regulations red tape and rules all and alike they bind | V |
Under separate treatment place the deaf in the dark cell shut the blind | V |
And somewhere down in his sandstone tomb with never a word to save | W |
One Hundred and Three is keeping step as he ll keep it to his grave | W |
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The press is printing its smug smug lies and paying its shameful debt | X |
It speaks of the comforts that prisoners have and holidays prisoners get | X |
The visitors come with their smug smug smiles through the gaol on a working day | I |
And the public hears with its large large ears what authorities have to say | I |
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They lay their fingers on well hosed walls and they tread on the polished floor | Y |
They peep in the generous shining cans with their ration Number Four | Y |
And the visitors go with their smug smug smiles the reporters work is done | Z |
Stand up my men who have done your time on ration Number One | Z |
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Speak up my men I was never the man to keep my own bed warm | A2 |
I have jogged with you round in the Fools Parade and I ve worn your uniform | A2 |
I ve seen you live and I ve seen you die and I ve seen your reason fail | B2 |
I ve smuggled tobacco and loosened my tongue and I ve been punished in gaol | B2 |
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Ay clang the spoon on the iron floor and shove in the bread with your toe | C2 |
And shut with a bang the iron door and clank the bolt just so | C2 |
With an ignorant oath for a last good night or the voice of a filthy thought | D2 |
By the Gipsy Blood you have caught a man you ll be sorry that ever you caught | E2 |
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He shall be buried alive without meat for a day and a night unheard | L |
If he speak to a fellow prisoner though he die for want of a word | L |
He shall be punished and he shall be starved and he shall in darkness rot | E2 |
He shall be murdered body and soul and God said Thou shalt not | E2 |
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I ve seen the remand yard men go out by the subway out of the yard | F2 |
And I ve seen them come in with a foolish grin and a sentence of Three Years Hard | F2 |
They send a half starved man to the court where the hearts of men they carve | G2 |
Then feed him up in the hospital to give him the strength to starve | G2 |
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You get the gaol dust in your throat in your skin the dead gaol white | H2 |
You get the gaol whine in your voice and in every letter you write | H2 |
And in your eyes comes the bright gaol light not the glare of the world s distraught | D2 |
Not the hunted look nor the guilty look but the awful look of the Caught | E2 |
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There was one I met twas a mate of mine in a gaol that is known to us | I2 |
He died and they said it was heart disease but he died for want of a truss | I2 |
I ve knelt at the head of the pallid dead where the living dead were we | B |
And I ve closed the yielding lids with my thumbs Keep step One Hundred and Three | B |
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A criminal face is rare in gaol where all things else are ripe | R |
It is higher up in the social scale that you ll find the criminal type | R |
But the kindness of man to man is great when penned in a sandstone pen | J2 |
The public call us the criminal class but the warders call us the men | J2 |
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The brute is a brute and a kind man kind and the strong heart does not fail | B2 |
A crawler s a crawler everywhere but a man is a man in gaol | B2 |
For forced desertion or drunkenness or a law s illegal debt | X |
While never a man who was a man was reformed by punishment yet | X |
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The champagne lady comes home from the course in charge of the criminal swell | B2 |
They carry her in from the motor car to the lift in the Grand Hotel | B2 |
But armed with the savage Habituals Act they are waiting for you and me | B |
And the drums they are beating loud and near Keep step One Hundred and Three | B |
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The clever scoundrels are all outside and the moneyless mugs in gaol | B2 |
Men do twelve months for a mad wife s lies or Life for a strumpet s tale | B2 |
If the people knew what the warders know and felt as the prisoners feel | B2 |
If the people knew they would storm their gaols as they stormed the old Bastile | B2 |
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And the cackling screaming half human hens who were never mothers nor wives | K2 |
Would send their sisters to such a hell for the term of their natural lives | L2 |
Where laws are made in a Female Fit in the Land of the Crazy Fad | M2 |
And drunkards in judgment on drunkards sit and the mad condemn the mad | M2 |
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The High Church service swells and swells where the tinted Christs look down | N2 |
It is easy to see who is weary and faint and weareth the thorny crown | N2 |
There are swift made signs that are not to God and they march us Hellward then | J2 |
It is hard to believe that we knelt as boys to for ever and ever Amen | J2 |
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Warders and prisoners all alike in a dead rot dry and | O2 |
Henry Lawson
(1)
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