Retired Shopman Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCD EFEFGHGH IJK LMLM NOPOJQJQ RSRSTUTU| He had the grocer's counter stoop | A |
| That little man so grey and neat | B |
| His moustache had a doleful droop | A |
| He hailed me in the slushy street | B |
| I've sold my shop he said to me | C |
| Cupping his hand behind his ear | D |
| My deafness got so bad you see | C |
| Folks had to shout to make me hear | D |
| - | |
| He sighed and sadly shook his head | E |
| The hand he gave was chill as ice | F |
| I sold out far too soon he said | E |
| To day I'd get ten times the price | F |
| But then how was a man to know | G |
| The War the rising cost of life | H |
| We have to pinch to make things go | G |
| It's tough I'm sorry for the wife | H |
| - | |
| She looks sometimes at me with tears | I |
| 'You worked so hard ' I hear her say | J |
| 'You had your shop for forty years | K |
| And you were honest as the day ' | - |
| Ah yes I loved my shop it's true | L |
| My customers I tried to please | M |
| But when one's deaf and sixty two | L |
| What can one do in times like these | M |
| - | |
| My savings that I fondly thought | N |
| Would keep me snug when we were old | O |
| Are melting fast what once I bought | P |
| For silver now is sought with gold | O |
| The cost of life goes up each day | J |
| I wonder what will be the end | Q |
| He sighed I saw him drift away | J |
| And thought Alas for you my friend | Q |
| - | |
| and every day I see him stop | R |
| And look and look with wistful eye | S |
| At what was once his little shop | R |
| Whose goods he can no longer buy | S |
| Then homeward wearily he goes | T |
| To where his wife bed ridden lies | U |
| A driblet dangling from his nose | T |
| But Oh the panic in his eyes | U |
Robert Service
(1)
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