The Dorchester Giant Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAAB CDEED BEFFE GHIIH JCJJC KLCCL MNOPN QRJJR STUUT CVWWV KXYYX| THERE was a giant in time of old | A |
| A mighty one was he | B |
| He had a wife but she was a scold | A |
| So he kept her shut in his mammoth fold | A |
| And he had children three | B |
| - | |
| It happened to be an election day | C |
| And the giants were choosing a king | D |
| The people were not democrats then | E |
| They did not talk of the rights of men | E |
| And all that sort of thing | D |
| - | |
| Then the giant took his children three | B |
| And fastened them in the pen | E |
| The children roared quoth the giant Be still | F |
| And Dorchester Heights and Milton Hill | F |
| Rolled back the sound again | E |
| - | |
| Then he brought them a pudding stuffed with plums | G |
| As big as the State House dome | H |
| Quoth he There's something for you to eat | I |
| So stop your mouths with your 'lection treat | I |
| And wait till your dad comes home | H |
| - | |
| So the giant pulled him a chestnut stout | J |
| And whittled the boughs away | C |
| The boys and their mother set up a shout | J |
| Said he You're in and you can't get out | J |
| Bellow as loud as you may | C |
| - | |
| Off he went and he growled a tune | K |
| As he strode the fields along | L |
| 'Tis said a buffalo fainted away | C |
| And fell as cold as a lump of clay | C |
| When he heard the giant's song | L |
| - | |
| But whether the story's true or not | M |
| It isn't for me to show | N |
| There's many a thing that's twice as queer | O |
| In somebody's lectures that we hear | P |
| And those are true you know | N |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| What are those lone ones doing now | Q |
| The wife and the children sad | R |
| Oh they are in a terrible rout | J |
| Screaming and throwing their pudding about | J |
| Acting as they were mad | R |
| - | |
| They flung it over to Roxbury hills | S |
| They flung it over the plain | T |
| And all over Milton and Dorchester too | U |
| Great lumps of pudding the giants threw | U |
| They tumbled as thick as rain | T |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Giant and mammoth have passed away | C |
| For ages have floated by | V |
| The suet is hard as a marrow bone | W |
| And every plum is turned to a stone | W |
| But there the puddings lie | V |
| - | |
| And if some pleasant afternoon | K |
| You'll ask me out to ride | X |
| The whole of the story I will tell | Y |
| And you shall see where the puddings fell | Y |
| And pay for the punch beside | X |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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