Hiawatha's Photographing Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBCDE FFFCG HCFIF CFJFF CFCDDEKLLFEF JDDL MJJJFFJLMELLNDCCD ODCLPPP FDEJCC CDC DQQFF NJLLC L JD F JFFLCFR CFDL ACJLCLF LLCRFFFF FDFFLF FFLDDJJLDDLMLFLFLNAFrom his shoulder Hiawatha | A |
Took the camera of rosewood | B |
Made of sliding folding rosewood | B |
Neatly put it all together | C |
In its case it lay compactly | D |
Folded into nearly nothing | E |
- | |
But he opened out the hinges | F |
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges | F |
Till it looked all squares and oblongs | F |
Like a complicated figure | C |
In the Second Book of Euclid | G |
- | |
This he perched upon a tripod | H |
Crouched beneath its dusky cover | C |
Stretched his hand enforcing silence | F |
Said Be motionless I beg you | I |
Mystic awful was the process | F |
- | |
All the family in order | C |
Sat before him for their pictures | F |
Each in turn as he was taken | J |
Volunteered his own suggestions | F |
His ingenious suggestions | F |
- | |
First the Governor the Father | C |
He suggested velvet curtains | F |
Looped about a massy pillar | C |
And the corner of a table | D |
Of a rosewood dining table | D |
He would hold a scroll of something | E |
Hold it firmly in his left hand | K |
He would keep his right hand buried | L |
Like Napoleon in his waistcoat | L |
He would contemplate the distance | F |
With a look of pensive meaning | E |
As of ducks that die ill tempests | F |
- | |
Grand heroic was the notion | J |
Yet the picture failed entirely | D |
Failed because he moved a little | D |
Moved because he couldn't help it | L |
- | |
Next his better half took courage | M |
SHE would have her picture taken | J |
She came dressed beyond description | J |
Dressed in jewels and in satin | J |
Far too gorgeous for an empress | F |
Gracefully she sat down sideways | F |
With a simper scarcely human | J |
Holding in her hand a bouquet | L |
Rather larger than a cabbage | M |
All the while that she was sitting | E |
Still the lady chattered chattered | L |
Like a monkey in the forest | L |
Am I sitting still she asked him | N |
Is my face enough in profile | D |
Shall I hold the bouquet higher | C |
Will it came into the picture | C |
And the picture failed completely | D |
- | |
Next the Son the Stunning Cantab | O |
He suggested curves of beauty | D |
Curves pervading all his figure | C |
Which the eye might follow onward | L |
Till they centered in the breast pin | P |
Centered in the golden breast pin | P |
He had learnt it all from Ruskin | P |
Author of 'The Stones of Venice ' | - |
'Seven Lamps of Architecture ' | - |
'Modern Painters ' and some others | F |
And perhaps he had not fully | D |
Understood his author's meaning | E |
But whatever was the reason | J |
All was fruitless as the picture | C |
Ended in an utter failure | C |
- | |
Next to him the eldest daughter | C |
She suggested very little | D |
Only asked if he would take her | C |
With her look of 'passive beauty ' | - |
- | |
Her idea of passive beauty | D |
Was a squinting of the left eye | Q |
Was a drooping of the right eye | Q |
Was a smile that went up sideways | F |
To the corner of the nostrils | F |
- | |
Hiawatha when she asked him | N |
Took no notice of the question | J |
Looked as if he hadn't heard it | L |
But when pointedly appealed to | L |
Smiled in his peculiar manner | C |
Coughed and said it 'didn't matter ' | - |
Bit his lip and changed the subject | L |
- | |
Nor in this was he mistaken | J |
As the picture failed completely | D |
- | |
So in turn the other sisters | F |
- | |
Last the youngest son was taken | J |
Very rough and thick his hair was | F |
Very round and red his face was | F |
Very dusty was his jacket | L |
Very fidgety his manner | C |
And his overbearing sisters | F |
Called him names he disapproved of | R |
Called him Johnny 'Daddy's Darling ' | - |
Called him Jacky 'Scrubby School boy ' | - |
And so awful was the picture | C |
In comparison the others | F |
Seemed to one's bewildered fancy | D |
To have partially succeeded | L |
- | |
Finally my Hiawatha | A |
Tumbled all the tribe together | C |
'Grouped' is not the right expression | J |
And as happy chance would have it | L |
Did at last obtain a picture | C |
Where the faces all succeeded | L |
Each came out a perfect likeness | F |
- | |
Then they joined and all abused it | L |
Unrestrainedly abused it | L |
As the worst and ugliest picture | C |
They could possibly have dreamed of | R |
'Giving one such strange expressions | F |
Sullen stupid pert expressions | F |
Really any one would take us | F |
Any one that did not know us | F |
For the most unpleasant people ' | - |
Hiawatha seemed to think so | F |
Seemed to think it not unlikely | D |
All together rang their voices | F |
Angry loud discordant voices | F |
As of dogs that howl in concert | L |
As of cats that wail in chorus | F |
- | |
But my Hiawatha's patience | F |
His politeness and his patience | F |
Unaccountably had vanished | L |
And he left that happy party | D |
Neither did he leave them slowly | D |
With the calm deliberation | J |
The intense deliberation | J |
Of a photographic artist | L |
But he left them in a hurry | D |
Left them in a mighty hurry | D |
Stating that he would not stand it | L |
Stating in emphatic language | M |
What he'd be before he'd stand it | L |
Hurriedly he packed his boxes | F |
Hurriedly the porter trundled | L |
On a barrow all his boxes | F |
Hurriedly he took his ticket | L |
Hurriedly the train received him | N |
Thus departed Hiawatha | A |
Lewis Carroll
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