The Ghost, Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABABCD EFEFEFCD GFGFGFFF BHBEBEII JAJKJKHH LJLJMJNN JOJOPQR STSBSBNN NBNBNBBB UBUBUBVV BNBNNNFF WBWBWBXX BBBBBBY ZFZFZFZZ A2 A2NB2 BBBBBBBB FBF FBZZ NNNNNNBB BFBFBFP BJBJBJZZ BBBBBBZZ ZJThere stands a City neither large nor small | A |
Its air and situation sweet and pretty | B |
It matters very little if at all | A |
Whether its denizens are dull or witty | B |
Whether the ladies there are short or tall | A |
Brunettes or blondes only there stands a city | B |
Perhaps 'tis also requisite to minute | C |
That there's a Castle and a Cobbler in it | D |
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A fair Cathedral too the story goes | E |
And kings and heroes lie entomb'd within her | F |
There pious Saints in marble pomp repose | E |
Whose shrines are worn by knees of many a Sinner | F |
There too full many an Aldermanic nose | E |
Roll'd its loud diapason after dinner | F |
And there stood high the holy sconce of Becket | C |
Till four assassins came from France to crack it | D |
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The Castle was a huge and antique mound | G |
Proof against all th' artillery of the quiver | F |
Ere those abominable guns were found | G |
To send cold lead through gallant warrior's liver | F |
It stands upon a gently rising ground | G |
Sloping down gradually to the river | F |
Resembling to compare great things with smaller | F |
A well scooped mouldy Stilton cheese but taller | F |
- | |
The Keep I find 's been sadly alter'd lately | B |
And 'stead of mail clad knights of honour jealous | H |
In martial panoply so grand and stately | B |
Its walls are fill'd with money making fellows | E |
And stuff'd unless I'm misinformed greatly | B |
With leaden pipes and coke and coals and bellows | E |
In short so great a change has come to pass | I |
'Tis now a manufactory of Gas | I |
- | |
But to my tale Before this profanation | J |
And ere its ancient glories were cut short all | A |
A poor hard working Cobbler took his station | J |
In a small house just opposite the portal | K |
His birth his parentage and education | J |
I know but little of a strange odd mortal | K |
His aspect air and gait were all ridiculous | H |
His name was Mason he'd been christen'd Nicholas | H |
- | |
Nick had a wife possessed of many a charm | L |
And of the Lady Huntingdon persuasion | J |
But spite of all her piety her arm | L |
She'd sometimes exercise when in a passion | J |
And being of a temper somewhat warm | M |
Would now and then seize upon small occasion | J |
A stick or stool or anything that round did lie | N |
And baste her lord and master most confoundedly | N |
- | |
No matter 'tis a thing that's not uncommon | J |
'Tis what we have all heard and most have read of | O |
I mean a bruizing pugilistic woman | J |
Such as I own I entertain a dread of | O |
And so did Nick whom sometimes there would come on | P |
A sort of fear his spouse might knock his head off | Q |
Demolish half his teeth or drive a rib in | R |
She shone so much in 'facers' and in 'fibbing ' | - |
- | |
'There's time and place for all things ' said a sage | S |
King Solomon I think and this I can say | T |
Within a well roped ring or on a stage | S |
Boxing may be a very pretty Fancy | B |
When Messrs Burke or Bendigo engage | S |
' Tis not so well in Susan Jane or Nancy | B |
To get well mill'd by any one's an evil | N |
But by a lady ' tis the very Devil | N |
- | |
And so thought Nicholas whose only trouble | N |
At least his worst was this his rib's propensity | B |
For sometimes from the alehouse he would hobble | N |
His senses lost in a sublime immensity | B |
Of cogitation then he couldn't cobble | N |
And then his wife would often try the density | B |
Of his poor skull and strike with all her might | B |
As fast as kitchen wenches strike a light | B |
- | |
Mason meek soul who ever hated strife | U |
Of this same striking had the utmost dread | B |
He hated it like poison or his wife | U |
A vast antipathy but so he said | B |
And very often for a quiet life | U |
On these occasions he'd sneak up to bed | B |
Grope darkling in and soon as at the door | V |
He heard his lady he'd pretend to snore | V |
- | |
One night then ever partial to society | B |
Nick with a friend another jovial fellow | N |
Went to a Club I should have said Society | B |
At the 'City Arms ' once called the Porto Bello | N |
A Spouting party which though some decry it I | N |
Consider no bad lounge when one is mellow | N |
There they discuss the tax on salt and leather | F |
And change of ministers and change of weather | F |
- | |
In short it was a kind of British Forum | W |
Like John Gale Jones's erst in Piccadilly | B |
Only they managed things with more decorum | W |
And the Orations were not quite so silly | B |
Far different questions too would come before 'em | W |
Not always Politics which will ye nill ye | B |
Their London prototypes were always willing | X |
To give one quantum suff of for a shilling | X |
- | |
It more resembled one of later date | B |
And tenfold talent as I'm told in Bow Street | B |
Where kindlier natured souls do congregate | B |
And though there are who deem that same a low street | B |
Yet I'm assured for frolicsome debate | B |
And genuine humour it's surpaass'd by no street | B |
When the 'Chief Baron' enters and assumes | Y |
To 'rule' o'er mimic 'Thesigers' and 'Broughams ' | - |
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Here they would oft forget their Rulers' faults | Z |
And waste in ancient lore the midnight taper | F |
Inquire if Orpheus first produced the Waltz | Z |
How Gas lights differ from the Delphic Vapour | F |
Whether Hippocrates gave Glauber's Salts | Z |
And what the Romans wrote on ere they'd paper | F |
This night the subject of their disquisitions | Z |
Was Ghosts Hobgoblins Sprites and Apparitions | Z |
- | |
One learned gentleman 'a sage grave man ' | - |
Talk'd of the Ghost in Hamlet 'sheath'd in steel ' | - |
His well read friend who next to speak began | A2 |
Said 'That was Poetry and nothing real ' | - |
A third of more extensive learning ran | A2 |
To Sir George Villiers' Ghost and Mrs Veal | N |
Of sheeted Spectres spoke with shorten'd breath | B2 |
And thrice he quoted 'Drelincourt on Death ' | - |
- | |
Nick smoked and smoked and trembled as he heard | B |
The point discuss'd and all they said upon it | B |
How frequently some murder'd man appear'd | B |
To tell his wife and children who had done it | B |
Or how a Miser's ghost with grisly beard | B |
And pale lean visage in an old Scotch bonnet | B |
Wander'd about to watch his buried money | B |
When all at once Nick heard the clock strike one he | B |
- | |
Sprang from his seat not doubting but a lecture | F |
Impended from his fond and faithful she | B |
Nor could he well to pardon him expect her | F |
For he had promised to 'be home to tea ' | - |
But having luckily the key o' the back door | F |
He fondly hoped that unperceived he | B |
Might creep up stairs again pretend to doze | Z |
And hoax his spouse with music from his nose | Z |
- | |
Vain fruitless hope The weary sentinel | N |
At eve may overlook the crouching foe | N |
Till ere his hand can sound the alarum bell | N |
He sinks beneath the unexpected blow | N |
Before the whiskers of Grimalkin fell | N |
When slumb'ring on her post the mouse may go | N |
But woman wakeful woman 's never weary | B |
Above all when she waits to thump her deary | B |
- | |
Soon Mrs Mason heard the well known tread | B |
She heard the key slow creaking in the door | F |
Spied through the gloom obscure towards the bed | B |
Nick creeping soft as oft he had crept before | F |
When bang she threw a something at his head | B |
And Nick at once lay prostrate on the floor | F |
While she exclaim'd with her indignant face on | P |
'How dare you use your wife so Mr Mason ' | - |
- | |
Spare we to tell how fiercely she debated | B |
Especially the length of her oration | J |
Spare we to tell how Nick expostulated | B |
Roused by the bump into a good set passion | J |
So great that more than once he execrated | B |
Ere he crawl'd into bed in his usual fashion | J |
The Muses hate brawls suffice it then to say | Z |
He duck'd below the clothes and there he lay | Z |
- | |
'Twas now the very witching time of night | B |
When churchyards groan and graves give up their dead | B |
And many a mischievous enfranchised Sprite | B |
Had long since burst his bonds of stone or lead | B |
And hurried off with schoolboy like delight | B |
To play his pranks near some poor wretch's bed | B |
Sleeping perhaps serenely as a porpoise | Z |
Nor dreaming of this fiendish Habeas Corpus | Z |
- | |
Not so our Nicholas his meditations | Z |
Still to the same tremen | J |
Richard Harris Barham
(1)
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