In A/c With Ghosts Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCD EEFEEGEGHHIH EEEEEJEK CECLLEL| You can shuffle and scuffle and scold | A |
| You can rattle the knockers and knobs | B |
| Or batter the doorsteps with buckets of gold | A |
| Till the Deputy Governor sobs | B |
| You can sneak up a suitable plank | C |
| In a frantic endeavor to see | D |
| But what do they do in the Commonwealth Bank | C |
| When the Big Door bangs at Three | D |
| - | |
| Listen in the cellars listen in the vaults | E |
| Can t you hear the tellers turning somersaults | E |
| Can t you hear the spectres of inspectors and directors | F |
| Dancing with the phantoms in a Dead Man s Waltz | E |
| Some are ghosts of nabobs poverty and stray bobs | E |
| Midas and his mistress Mammon and his wife | G |
| Other ones are sentries guarding double entries | E |
| Long forgotten double dealing troubled double life | G |
| Down among the pass books money lent and spent | H |
| Down among the forests of the Four Per Cent | H |
| Where the ledgers meet and moulder and the overdrafts grow older | I |
| And the phantoms shrug a shoulder when you ask em for the rent | H |
| - | |
| They are bogies of Grandfather s cheques | E |
| They are spectres of buried accounts | E |
| They are crinoline sweethearts with pearls on their necks | E |
| Demanding enormous amounts | E |
| They are payment for suppers and flowers | E |
| For diamonds to banish a tear | J |
| For sweet pretty ladies in opulent hours | E |
| And tombstones and bailiffs and beer | K |
| - | |
| Down in the bowels of the bank the ledgers lie rank upon rank | C |
| The debts of the ages come out of their pages | E |
| The bones of old loans creak and clank | C |
| Oh if you could peep through the door | L |
| To day at a Quarter Past Four | L |
| You d find all the ghosts at their usual posts | E |
| And you wouldn t sign cheques any more | L |
Kenneth Slessor
(1)
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