The Old Play Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Kenneth Slessor

The Old Play Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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I	A
IN an old play house in an old play	B
In an old piece that has been done to death	C
We dance kind ladies noble friends	D
Observe our modishness I pray	B
What dignity the music lends	D
Our sighs no doubt are only a doll's breath	C
But gravely done indeed we're all devotion	E
All pride and fury and pitiful elegance	F
The importance of these antics who may doubt	G
Do you deny us the honour of emotion	E
Because another has danced this our dance	H
Let us jump it out	G
II	A
IN the old play house in the watery flare	I
Of gilt and candlesticks in a dim pit	J
Furred with a powder of corroded plush	K
Paint fallen from angels floating in mid air	I
The gods in languor sit	J
Their talk they hush	K
Their eyes' bright stony suction	E
Freezes to silence as we come	L
With our proud masks to act	M
Who knows Our poor induction	E
May take the ear may still perchance distract	M
Unspeakable tedium	L
Is there nothing new in this old theatre nothing new	N
Are there no bristles left to prick	O
With monstrous tunes the music box of flesh	P
Hopes dies away the dance absurd antique	Q
Fatigues their monocles the gods pursue	N
Their ageless colloquy afresh	P
III	A
MARDUK his jewelled finger flips	R
To greet a friend Bald headed lean	S
He wets his red transparent lips	R
Taps his pince nez and gapes unseen	S
Hequet to Mama Cocha cranes	T
Her horny beak 'These fools who drink	U
Hemlock with love deserve their pains	T
They're so conventional I think '	V
Limply she ceases to employ	W
Her little ivory spying lens	X
'I much prefer the Egyptian boy	W
Who poisoned Thua in the fens '	V
IV	-
BUT who are we to sneer	Y
Who are we to count the rhymes	Z
Or the authorized postures of the heart	A2
Filched from a dynasty of mimes	Z
Each has a part	A2
We do not hear	B2
The mockers at our little minion ardours	Z
Our darling hatreds and adulteries	Z
Our griefs and ecstasies	Z
Our festivals and murders	Z
And who are we who are we	C2
That would despise the lawful ceremonies	Z
Condoned by the coming of five Christs	Z
By the beating of an infinitude of breasts	Z
By Adam's tears by the dead man's pennies	Z
Who are we	C2
V	C2
AND who are we to argue with our lutes	Z
How would we change the play	B
Are we Lucifers with hell in our boots	Z
There are no Lucifers to day	B
By no means It is never like this	Z
Never like this One does not fall	D2
How should we find like Lucifer an abyss	Z
Never like that at all	D2
And who are we to pester Azrael	D2
Importunate for funeral plumes	Z
And all the graces Death can sell	D2
Death in cocked feathers Death in drawing rooms	Z
Death with a sword cane stabbing down the stairs	Z
It is not like this at all	D2
Never never like this	Z
Death is the humblest of affairs	Z
It is really incredibly small	D2
The dropping of a degree or less	Z
And tightening of a vein such gradual things	Z
And then	E2
How should we guess	Z
The slow Capuan poison the soft strings	Z
Of Death with leather jaws come tasting men	E2
VI	-
CAMAZOTZ and Anubis	Z
Go no more to the coulisses	Z
Once they'd wait for hours	Z
Grateful for a few excuses	Z
Hiding their snouts in flowers	Z
Merely as a tribute to the Muses	Z
Those were the days of serenades	Z
Prima donnas and appointments	Z
Now they think longer of pomades	Z
Less of the heart and more of ointments	Z
Anubis dabbles with the world	F2
A charming man perhaps a trifle sinister	G2
But with his stars on and his tendrils curled	F2
Really you'd take him for the Persian Minister	G2
But Camazotz has grown jaded	H2
And likes an arm chair in the stalls	Z
Being by brute necessity persuaded	H2
That perfect love inevitably palls	Z
Such the divine adversity	C2
Of passion twisting on its stem	I2
Seeking a vague and cloudier trophy	C2
Beyond the usual diadem	I2
'More balconies More lilac trees	Z
Let us go out to the private bar	J2
I am so tired of young men like these	Z
Besides I note he is carrying a guitar '	V
VII	C2
'SHANG YA I want to be your friend'	C2
That was the fashion in our termitary	J2
In the gas lit cellules of virtuous young men	E2
'Shang Ya I want to be your friend '	V
Often I think if we had gone then	E2
Waving the torches of demoniac theory	J2
We should have melted stone astonished God	C2
Overturned kings exalted scullions	Z
And ridden the hairy beast outside	C2
Into our stables to be shod	C2
Such was the infection of our pride	C2
Almost a confederation of Napoleons	Z
Though in Yu h it is usual	D2
To behead a cock and dog	K2
Such was not considered binding	L2
In our bloodless decalogue	L2
But the tail piece to the chapter	J2
We so fierily began	M2
Resembled an old song book	L2
From the golden days of Han	N2
Ours was the Life Parting	L2
Which made the poets so elegantly tragic	L2
On and on always on and on	N2
By fears and families by a sudden plague of logic	L2
By an agreeable ossification	E
By a thousand tiny particles of space	Z
Widening the fissures of our brotherhood	C2
We were impelled from place to place	Z
Dismembered by necessitude	C2
Who could have called that soft adhesive nag	L2
We bounced our lives on a wild horse	Z
We were given palfreys in the place of stallions	Z
As for the kings and scullions	Z
We should no doubt have brought them to our flag	L2
Had we not forgotten the prescribed discourse	Z
On and on driven by flabby whips	Z
To the Nine Lands to the world's end	C2
We have been scattered by the sea captains of ships	Z
Crying no more with bright and childish lips	Z
Even if we wanted to pretend	C2
'Shang Ya Let me be your friend '	V
VIII	C2
THIS is really a Complete Life and Works	Z
The memorial of a great man	M2
Who was born with Excalibur in his fist	C2
And finished by asking questions	Z
Woken by a star falling on his tiles	Z
He rushed out defying devils	Z
'Come forth you monster ' Only neighbours peeped	C2
Fish eyed at this ferocity	C2
Repeatedly inviting the rogue to stand	C2
He hunted with a naked sword	C2
But though general admiration and sympathy were expressed	C2
The scoundrel was not detected	C2
At last regrettable to state he stopped	C2
Why honour a coward with pursuit	C2
So he began to use Excalibur in the kitchen	E
Or on occasion as a hay rake	L2
How did he know that Time at length would gnaw	O2
The rascal's face with quicklime	I2
Gradually the print faded a fog blew down	P2
He even forgot the nature of the outrage	Q2
However he managed to live very tolerably	D2
And now in a substantial villa	D2
Having saved enough to purchase an annuity	C2
Is piously glad he never found anyone	E
But Gutumdug and Vukub Cakix	Z
Having already seen many great men	E2
May surely be pardoned if with foundered chins	Z
They doze a little	D2
Phew heu	R2
Doze a little	D2
IX	Z
A BIRD sang in the jaws of night	C2
Like a star lost in space	Z
O dauntless molecule to smite	C2
With joy that giant face	Z
I heard you mock the lonely air	J2
The bitter dark with song	L2
Waking again the old Despair	J2
That had been dead so long	L2
That had been covered up with clay	D2
And never talked about	C2
So none with bony claws could say	D2
They'd dig my coffin out	C2
But you with music clear and brave	C2
Have shamed the buried thing	L2
It rises dripping from the grave	C2
And tries in vain to sing	L2
O could the bleeding mouth reply	D2
The broken flesh but moan	S2
The tongues of skeletons would cry	D2
And Death push back his stone	S2
X	Z
MY strings I break my breast I beat	C2
The immemorial tears repeat	C2
But Beli yawning in the pit	C2
Is not at all impressed by it	C2
Fresh lachrymations to endure	J2
He champs a gilded comfiture	J2
'The song was stale five Acts ago	L2
Besides it isn't Life you know '	V
XI	Z
BUT Life we know but Life we know	L2
Is full of visions and vertigo	L2
Full of God's blowpipes belching rubies forth	T2
And God's ambiguous grape shot maiming saints	Z
Full of emancipations and restraints	Z
Thou poor bewildered earth	U2
Thou givest us neither doom nor expiation	L2
Nor palm trees bursting into praise	Z