The Ballad Of Blasphemous Bill Poem Rhyme Scheme

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I took a contract to bury the body of blasphemous Bill MacKie	A
Whenever wherever or whatsoever the manner of death he die	B
Whether he die in the light o' day or under the peak faced moon	C
In cabin or dance hall camp or dive mucklucks or patent shoon	C
On velvet tundra or virgin peak by glacier drift or draw	D
In muskeg hollow or canyon gloom by avalanche fang or claw	D
By battle murder or sudden wealth by pestilence hooch or lead	E
I swore on the Book I would follow and look till I found my tombless dead	E
	-
For Bill was a dainty kind of cuss and his mind was mighty sot	F
On a dinky patch with flowers and grass in a civilized bone yard lot	G
And where he died or how he died it didn't matter a damn	C
So long as he had a grave with frills and a tombstone epigram	C
So I promised him and he paid the price in good cheechako coin	C
Which the same I blowed in that very night down in the Tenderloin	C
Then I painted a three foot slab of pine Here lies poor Bill MacKie	A
And I hung it up on my cabin wall and I waited for Bill to die	B
	-
Years passed away and at last one day came a squaw with a story strange	H
Of a long deserted line of traps 'way back of the Bighorn range	H
Of a little hut by the great divide and a white man stiff and still	I
Lying there by his lonesome self and I figured it must be Bill	I
So I thought of the contract I'd made with him and I took down from the shelf	J
The swell black box with the silver plate he'd picked out for hisself	J
And I packed it full of grub and hooch and I slung it on the sleigh	K
Then I harnessed up my team of dogs and was off at dawn of day	K
	-
You know what it's like in the Yukon wild when it's sixty nine below	L
When the ice worms wriggle their purple heads through the crust of the pale blue snow	L
When the pine trees crack like little guns in the silence of the wood	M
And the icicles hang down like tusks under the parka hood	M
When the stove pipe smoke breaks sudden off and the sky is weirdly lit	N
And the careless feel of a bit of steel burns like a red hot spit	N
When the mercury is a frozen ball and the frost fiend stalks to kill	I
Well it was just like that that day when I set out to look for Bill	I
	-
Oh the awful hush that seemed to crush me down on every hand	O
As I blundered blind with a trail to find through that blank and bitter land	O
Half dazed half crazed in the winter wild with its grim heart breaking woes	P
And the ruthless strife for a grip on life that only the sourdough knows	P
North by the compass North I pressed river and peak and plain	C
Passed like a dream I slept to lose and I waked to dream again	C
	-
River and plain and mighty peak and who could stand unawed	O
As their summits blazed he could stand undazed at the foot of the throne of God	O
North aye North through a land accurst shunned by the scouring brutes	P
And all I heard was my own harsh word and the whine of the malamutes	P
Till at last I came to a cabin squat built in the side of a hill	I
And I burst in the door and there on the floor frozen to death lay Bill	I
	-
Ice white ice like a winding sheet sheathing each smoke grimed wall	Q
Ice on the stove pipe ice on the bed ice gleaming over all	Q
Sparkling ice on the dead man's chest glittering ice in his hair	R
Ice on his fingers ice in his heart ice in his glassy stare	R
Hard as a log and trussed like a frog with his arms and legs outspread	O
I gazed at the coffin I'd brought for him and I gazed at the gruesome dead	O
And at last I spoke Bill liked his joke but still goldarn his eyes	P
A man had ought to consider his mates in the way he goes and dies	P
	-
Have you ever stood in an Arctic hut in the shadow of the Pole	S
With a little coffin six by three and a grief you can't control	S
Have you ever sat by a frozen corpse that looks at you with a grin	C
And that seems to say You may try all day but you'll never jam me in	C
I'm not a man of the quitting kind but I never felt so blue	T
As I sat there gazing at that stiff and studying what I'd do	T
Then I rose and I kicked off the husky dogs that were nosing round about	O
And I lit a roaring fire in the stove and I started to thaw Bill out	O
	-
Well I thawed and thawed for thirteen days but it didn't seem no good	O
His arms and legs stuck out like pegs as if they was made of wood	O
Till at last I said It ain't no use he's froze too hard to thaw	D
He's obstinate and he won't lie straight so I guess I got to saw	D
So I sawed off poor Bill's arms and legs and I laid him snug and straight	O
In the little coffin he picked hisself with the dinky silver plate	O
And I came nigh near to shedding a tear as I nailed him safely down	C
Then I stowed him away in my Yukon sleigh and I started back to town	C
	-
So I buried him as the contract was in a narrow grave and deep	U
And there he's waiting the Great Clean up when the Judgment sluice heads sweep	U
And I smoke my pipe and I meditate in the light of the Midnight Sun	C
And sometimes I wonder if they was the awful things I done	C
And as I sit and the parson talks expounding of the Law	D
I often think of poor old Bill and how hard he was to saw	D

Robert Service

The Ballad Of Blasphemous Bill Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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