Treasure Trove Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABACCAA DEDFDGGDD HIHIHJJHH AKAKALMAA NONONPPNN QRARAAAAA RARARSSRR TATATOOTT DRRDRRUD VWVWVXXVV YZA2Z B2B2YY C2SD2SC2CCC2C2We were a crew of what you please | A |
Men with the lust of gold gone mad | B |
Dutch and Yankee and Portuguese | A |
With a nigger or two from Trinidad | B |
The scum of the Caribbees | A |
Outbound outbound for a treasure ground | C |
A pirate isle no man had found | C |
A long lost isle in the Southern Seas | A |
An isle of the Southern Seas | A |
- | |
We sailed our ship by a chart we bore | D |
The parchment script of a buccaneer | E |
Whose skeleton found on a Carib shore | D |
Had kept its secret for many a year | F |
Locked in a buckle of belt it wore | D |
And the dim chart told of buried gold | G |
A hidden harbor and pirate hold | G |
On an isle that seamen touched no more | D |
That sailors knew no more | D |
- | |
We were a crew of Devil may care | H |
Who staked our lives on a bit of a scrawl | I |
Who diced each other for lot and share | H |
Or ever we hoisted sail at all | I |
Or the brine blew through our hair | H |
At last with a hail for calm or gale | J |
The wind of adventure in our sail | J |
We piped up anchor and did our dare | H |
Steered for the Island there | H |
- | |
From Porto Bello to Isle of France | A |
And thence South East our chart read plain | K |
We followed the route of old Romance | A |
The plate ship route of the Spanish Main | K |
The old wild route of Chance | A |
Black Beard sailed it and Jean Lafitte | L |
And Drake and Morgan and many a fleet | M |
Of pillage once that led the dance | A |
Spain's golden galleon dance | A |
- | |
Moidores guineas and pieces of eight | N |
Doubloons round as the gibbous moon | O |
All the wealth that they sacked as freight | N |
In the good old days' of the piccaroon | O |
We dreamed of soon and late | N |
And gems of the East of which the least | P |
Would grace a Khan's or a Caliph's feast | P |
And chest on chest of Spanish plate | N |
Great chests of Spanish plate | N |
- | |
The wind blew fair from Panama | Q |
For a month the wind blew fair and free | R |
We steered our ship by the gold we saw | A |
In the far off script of a century | R |
Wherein men knew no law | A |
We held our course for better or worse | A |
Now with a song and now with a curse | A |
According to the lots we'd draw | A |
Rum or the lots we'd draw | A |
- | |
We had not reckoned on destiny | R |
And him all seamen dread they say | A |
That captain old in infamy | R |
Who holds to Hell till the Judgment Day | A |
And takes of Earth his fee | R |
Oh black and black is the South Sea track | S |
Of the skeleton Captain Yellow Jack | S |
Who sweeps with his boneyard crew the sea | R |
The hurricane haunted sea | R |
- | |
- | |
- | |
Six weeks we lay in the doldrums dead | T |
Six weeks that rotted us with delay | A |
Till a gale sprang up and drove us ahead | T |
Out of our course for a week and a day | A |
Till we deemed we were Dutchman led | T |
When the gale was done why one by one | O |
The scurvy took us every son | O |
And mutiny down in the hold was bred | T |
Mutiny then was bred | T |
- | |
At last on our bow we sighted shore | D |
A wild crag circled of cloud and sea | R |
Our pirate isle where ceaselessly | R |
The rock fanged surf kept up its roar | D |
Round a towering bluff and tree | R |
Where the chart was marked that the gold should be | R |
Cliffs that the seafowl clamored o'er | U |
With the dragging seaweed hoar | D |
- | |
A smudge of mist and a gleam that died | V |
And a muttering down below | W |
And night was on us at a stride | V |
And God how it came to blow | W |
And a man went over the side | V |
Then fore and aft of our crazy craft | X |
Corposants glimmered and Madness laughed | X |
And a voice from the Island wild replied | V |
A d mon voice replied | V |
- | |
Three nights and days of the hurncane's rage | Y |
What curse now held us off | Z |
We never would win to an anchorage | A2 |
We thought when ho with a scoff | Z |
The Island thundered 'Come take your wage ' | - |
And lo that night by the thin moonlight | B2 |
We found our ship in a bay or bight | B2 |
That seemed a part of another age | Y |
A far off pirate age | Y |
- | |
Our ship a leak and her pumps all jammed | C2 |
We won to the Harbor of Yellow Jack | S |
And so it was that he took command | D2 |
And hoisted his skeleton flag of black | S |
And our decks with dead men crammed | C2 |
But we we found the treasure ground | C |
Where some went mad and some were drowned | C |
For the gold you see was damned was damned | C2 |
The gold you see was damned | C2 |
Madison Julius Cawein
(1)
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