The Ballad Of Hard-luck Henry Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEE FFGGHHIJ KKLLMMNN OOPPDDQQ RRFFST OOUUVVWWNN XXNNYYZZA2A2

Now wouldn't you expect to find a man an awful crankA
That's staked out nigh three hundred claims and every one a blankA
That's followed every fool stampede and seen the rise and fallB
Of camps where men got gold in chunks and he got none at allB
That's prospected a bit of ground and sold it for a songC
To see it yield a fortune to some fool that came alongC
That's sunk a dozen bed rock holes and not a speck in sightD
Yet sees them take a million from the claims to left and rightD
Now aren't things like that enough to drive a man to boozeE
But Hard Luck Smith was hoodoo proof he knew the way to loseE
-
'Twas in the fall of nineteen four leap year I've heard them sayF
When Hard Luck came to Hunker Creek and took a hillside layF
And lo as if to make amends for all the futile pastG
Late in the year he struck it rich the real pay streak at lastG
The riffles of his sluicing box were choked with speckled earthH
And night and day he worked that lay for all that he was worthH
And when in chill December's gloom his lucky lease expiredI
He found that he had made a stake as big as he desiredJ
-
One day while meditating on the waywardness of fateK
He felt the ache of lonely man to find a fitting mateK
A petticoated pard to cheer his solitary lifeL
A woman with soft soothing ways a confidant a wifeL
And while he cooked his supper on his little Yukon stoveM
He wished that he had staked a claim in Love's rich treasure troveM
When suddenly he paused and held aloft a Yukon eggN
For there in pencilled letters was the magic name of PegN
-
You know these Yukon eggs of ours some pink some green some blueO
A dollar per assorted tints assorted flavors tooO
The supercilious cheechako might designate them highP
But one acquires a taste for them and likes them by and byP
Well Hard Luck Henry took this egg and held it to the lightD
And there was more faint pencilling that sorely taxed his sightD
At last he made it out and then the legend ran like thisQ
Will Klondike miner write to Peg Plumhollow Squashville WisQ
-
That night he got to thinking of this far off unknown fairR
It seemed so sort of opportune an answer to his prayerR
She flitted sweetly through his dreams she haunted him by dayF
She smiled through clouds of nicotine she cheered his weary wayF
At last he yielded to the spell his course of love he setS
Wisconsin his objective point his object MargaretT
-
With every mile of sea and land his longing grew and grewO
He practised all his pretty words and these I fear were fewO
At last one frosty evening with a cold chill down his spineU
He found himself before her house the threshold of the shrineU
His courage flickered to a spark then glowed with sudden flameV
He knocked he heard a welcome word she came his goddess cameV
Oh she was fair as any flower and huskily he spokeW
I'm all the way from Klondike with a mighty heavy pokeW
I'm looking for a lassie one whose Christian name is PegN
Who sought a Klondike miner and who wrote it on an eggN
-
The lassie gazed at him a space her cheeks grew rosy redX
She gazed at him with tear bright eyes then tenderly she saidX
Yes lonely Klondike miner it is true my name is PegN
It's also true I longed for you and wrote it on an eggN
My heart went out to someone in that land of night and coldY
But oh I fear that Yukon egg must have been mighty oldY
I waited long I hoped and feared you should have come beforeZ
I've been a wedded woman now for eighteen months or moreZ
I'm sorry since you've come so far you ain't the one that winsA2
But won't you take a step inside I'll let you see the twinsA2

Robert Service



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