The Smiling Listener Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDD EEFF GGHH IJKK LLM NNOO PPQQ BBRR SSTT UU V WWXX AAD YYKK ZZA2A2 B2B2AA PPS C2C2D2D2 E2E2F2F2| PRECISELY I see it You all want to say | A |
| That a tear is too sad and a laugh is too gay | A |
| You could stand a faint smile you could manage a sigh | B |
| But you value your ribs and you don't want to cry | B |
| - | |
| And why at our feast of the clasping of hands | C |
| Need we turn on the stream of our lachrymal glands | C |
| Though we see the white breakers of age on our bow | D |
| Let us take a good pull in the jolly boat now | D |
| - | |
| It's hard if a fellow cannot feel content | E |
| When a banquet like this does n't cost him a cent | E |
| When his goblet and plate he may empty at will | F |
| And our kind Class Committee will settle the bill | F |
| - | |
| And here's your old friend the identical bard | G |
| Who has rhymed and recited you verse by the yard | G |
| Since the days of the empire of Andrew the First | H |
| Till you 're full to the brim and feel ready to burst | H |
| - | |
| It's awful to think of how year after year | I |
| With his piece in his pocket he waits for you here | J |
| No matter who's missing there always is one | K |
| To lug out his manuscript sure as a gun | K |
| - | |
| 'Why won't he stop writing ' Humanity cries | L |
| The answer is briefly 'He can't if he tries | L |
| He has played with his foolish old feather so long | M |
| That the goose quill in spite of him cackles in song ' | - |
| - | |
| You have watched him with patience from morning to dusk | N |
| Since the tassel was bright o'er the green of the husk | N |
| And now it 's too bad it 's a pitiful job | O |
| He has shelled the ripe ear till he's come to the cob | O |
| - | |
| I see one face beaming it listens so well | P |
| There must be some music yet left in my shell | P |
| The wine of my soul is not thick on the lees | Q |
| One string is unbroken one friend I can please | Q |
| - | |
| Dear comrade the sunshine of seasons gone by | B |
| Looks out from your tender and tear moistened eye | B |
| A pharos of love on an ice girdled coast | R |
| Kind soul Don't you hear me He's deaf as a post | R |
| - | |
| Can it be one of Nature's benevolent tricks | S |
| That you grow hard of hearing as I grow prolix | S |
| And that look of delight which would angels beguile | T |
| Is the deaf man's prolonged unintelligent smile | T |
| - | |
| Ah the ear may grow dull and the eye may wax dim | U |
| But they still know a classmate they can't mistake him | U |
| There is something to tell us 'That's one of our band ' | - |
| Though we groped in the dark for a touch of his hand | V |
| - | |
| Well Time with his snuffers is prowling about | W |
| And his shaky old fingers will soon snuff us out | W |
| There's a hint for us all in each pendulum tick | X |
| For we're low in the tallow and long in the wick | X |
| - | |
| You remember Rossini you 've been at the play | A |
| How his overture endings keep crashing away | A |
| Till you think 'It 's all over it can't but stop now | D |
| That 's the screech and the bang of the final bow wow ' | - |
| - | |
| And you find you 're mistaken there 's lots more to come | Y |
| More banging more screeching of fiddle and drum | Y |
| Till when the last ending is finished and done | K |
| You feel like a horse when the winning post 's won | K |
| - | |
| So I who have sung to you merry or sad | Z |
| Since the days when they called me a promising lad | Z |
| Though I 've made you more rhymes than a tutor could scan | A2 |
| Have a few more still left like the razor strop man | A2 |
| - | |
| Now pray don't be frightened I 'm ready to stop | B2 |
| My galloping anapests' clatter and pop | B2 |
| In fact if you say so retire from to day | A |
| To the garret I left on a poet's half pay | A |
| - | |
| And yet I can't help it perhaps who can tell | P |
| You might miss the poor singer you treated so well | P |
| And confess you could stand him five minutes or so | S |
| 'It was so like old times we remember you know ' | - |
| - | |
| 'T is not that the music can signify much | C2 |
| But then there are chords that awake with a touch | C2 |
| And our hearts can find echoes of sorrow and joy | D2 |
| To the winch of the minstrel who hails from Savoy | D2 |
| - | |
| So this hand organ tune that I cheerfully grind | E2 |
| May bring the old places and faces to mind | E2 |
| And seen in the light of the past we recall | F2 |
| The flowers that have faded bloom fairest of all | F2 |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
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