Ruth Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD DDDD BBDD DDDDEEFG HHDD IIFF JJKK LLMM NDOOCCBB PPQQ DDRR SSDD DDTT NNUU LLTT DDBB DDDD TTVVDDMM WWXX DDSS YYRR TTZDAll is well in a prison to night and the warders are crying All s Well | A |
I must speak for the sake of my heart if it s but to the walls of my cell | A |
For what does it matter to me if to morrow I go where I will | B |
I m as free as I ever shall be there is naught in my life to fulfil | B |
I am free I am haunted no more by the question that tortured my brain | C |
Are you sane of a people gone mad or mad in a world that is sane | C |
I have had time to rest and to pray and my reason no longer is vext | D |
By the spirit that hangs you one day and would hail you as martyr the next | D |
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Are the fields of my fancy less fair through a window that s narrowed and barred | D |
Are the morning stars dimmed by the glare of the gas light that flares in the yard | D |
No And what does it matter to me if to morrow I sail from the land | D |
I am free as I never was free I exult in my loneliness grand | D |
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Be a saint and a saviour of men be a Christ and they ll slander and rail | B |
Only Crime s understood in the world and a man is respected in gaol | B |
But I find in my raving a balm in the worst that has come to the worst | D |
Let me think of it all I grow calm let me think it all out from the first | D |
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Beyond the horizon of Self do the walls of my prison retreat | D |
And I stand in a gap of the hills with the scene of my life at my feet | D |
The range to the west and the Peak and the marsh where the dark ridges end | D |
And the spurs running down to the Creek and the she oaks that sigh in the bend | D |
The hints of the river below and away on the azure and green | E |
The old goldfield of Specimen Flat and the township a blotch on the scene | E |
The store the hotels and the bank and the gaol and the people who come | F |
With the weatherboard box and the tank the Australian idea of home | G |
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The scribe spirit broken the wreck in his might have been or shame | H |
The townsman respected or worthy the workman respectful and tame | H |
The boss of the pub with his fine sense of honour grown moral and stout | D |
Like the spielers who came with the line on the cheques that were made farther out | D |
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The clever young churchman despised by the swaggering popular man | I |
The doctor with hands clasped behind and bowed head as if under a ban | I |
The one man with the brains with the power to lead unsuspected and dumb | F |
Whom Fate sets apart for the Hour the man for the hour that might come | F |
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The old local liar whose story was ancient when Egypt was young | J |
And the gossip who hangs on the fence and poisons God s world with her tongue | J |
The haggard bush mother who d nag though a husband or child be divine | K |
And who takes a fierce joy in a rag of the clothes on the newcomer s line | K |
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And a lad with a cloud on his heart who was lost in a world vague and dim | L |
No one dreamed as he drifted apart that twas genius the matter with him | L |
Who was doomed in that ignorant hole to its spiritless level to sink | M |
Till the iron had entered his soul and his brain found a refuge in drink | M |
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Perhaps I was bitter because of the tongues of disgrace in the town | N |
Of a boy nature misunderstood and its nobler ambitions sneered | D |
Of the sense of injustice that stings till it ends in the creed of the push | O |
I was born in that shadow that clings to the old gully homes in the bush | O |
And I was ambitious Perhaps as a boy I could see things too plain | C |
How I wished I could write of the truths of the visions that haunted my brain | C |
Of the bush buried toiler denied e en the last loving comforts of all | B |
Of my father who slaved till he died in the scrub by his wedges and maul | B |
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Twenty years and from daylight till dark twenty years it was split fence and grub | P |
And the end was a tumble down hut and a bare dusty patch in the scrub | P |
Twas the first time he d rested they said but the knit in his forehead was deep | Q |
And to me the scarred hands of the dead seemed to work as I d seen them in sleep | Q |
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And the mother who toiled by his side through hardship and trouble and drought | D |
And who fought for the home when he died till her heart not her spirit wore out | D |
I am shamed for Australia and haunted by the face of the haggard bush wife | R |
She who fights her grim battle undaunted because she knows nothing of life | R |
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By the barren track travelled by few men poor victims of commerce unknown | S |
E en the troubles that woman tells woman she suffers unpitied alone | S |
Heart dumbed and mind dulled and benighted Eve s beauty in girlhood destroyed | D |
Till the wrongs never felt shall be righted and the peace never missed be enjoyed | D |
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There was no one to understand me I was lonely and shy as a lad | D |
Or I lived in a world that was wider than ours so of course I was mad | D |
Who is not understood is a crank so I suffered the tortures of men | T |
Doomed to think in the bush till I drank and went wrong I grew popular then | T |
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There was Doctor Lebenski my friend and the friend too of all who were down | N |
Clever gloomy and generous drunkard the pride and disgrace of the town | N |
He had been through the glory and shame of a wild life by city and sea | U |
And the tales of the land whence he came had a strong fascination for me | U |
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And often in yarning or fancy when she oaks grew misty and dim | L |
From the forest and straight for the camp of the Cossack I ve ridden with him | L |
Ridden out in the dusk with a score ridden back ere the dawning with ten | T |
Have struck at three kingdoms and Fate for the fair land of Poland again | T |
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He d a sorrow that drink couldn t drown that his great heart was powerless to fight | D |
And I gathered the threads twixt the long pregnant puffs of his last pipe at night | D |
For he d say to me sadly Jack Drew then he d pause as to watch the smoke curl | B |
If a good girl should love you be true though you die for it true to the girl | B |
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A man may be false to his country a man may be false to his friend | D |
Be a vagabond drunkard a spieler yet his soul may come right in the end | D |
But there is no prayer no atonement no drink that can banish the shade | D |
From your side if you ve one spark of manhood of a dead girl that you have betrayed | D |
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One chance for a fortune we re told in the lives of the poorest of men | T |
There s a chance for a heaven on earth that comes over and over again | T |
Twas for Ruth the bank manager s niece that the wretched old goldfield grew fair | V |
And she came like an angel of peace in an hour of revengeful despair | V |
A girl as God made her and wise in a faith that was never estranged | D |
From childhood neglected and wronged she had grown with her nature unchanged | D |
And she came as an angel of Hope as I crouched on Eternity s brink | M |
And the loaded revolver and rope were parts of the horrors of drink | M |
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I was not to be trusted they said within sight of a cheque or a horse | W |
And the worst that was said of my name all the gossips were glad to endorse | W |
But she loved me she loved me And why Ask the she oaks that sighed in the bends | X |
We had suffered alike she and I from the blindness of kinsfolk and friends | X |
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A girlhood of hardship and care for she gave the great heart of a child | D |
To a brother whose idol was Self and a brother good natured but wild | D |
And a father who left her behind when he d suffered too much from the moan | S |
Of a mother grown selfish and blind in her trouble twas always her own | S |
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She was brave and she never complained for the hardships of youth that had driven | Y |
My soul to the brink of perdition but strengthened the girl s faith in Heaven | Y |
In the home that her relatives gave she was tortured each hour of her life | R |
By her cruel dependence the slave of her aunt the bank manager s wife | R |
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Does the world know how easy to lead and how hard to be driven are men | T |
She was leading me back with her love to the faith of my childhood again | T |
To my boyhood s neglected ideal to the hopes that were strangled at birth | Z |
To the good and the truth of the real to | D |
Henry Lawson
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