The Ballad Of Lenin's Tomb Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDB EEFFGGHHIIJJ KKAALLHHHHMMNNHHOOHH PPHHBB QQRRLLSSTTHHUUVV WWXXHHNN HHYYZZGGRRHHDDA2A2 NNRRHHNDTTB2B2HHAAHH ABCBLBThis is the yarn he told me | A |
As we sat in Casey's Bar | B |
That Rooshun mug who scammed from the jug | C |
In the Land of the Crimson Star | B |
That Soviet guy with the single eye | D |
And the face like a flaming scar | B |
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Where Lenin lies the red flag flies and the rat grey workers wait | E |
To tread the gloom of Lenin's Tomb where the Comrade lies in state | E |
With lagging pace they scan his face so weary yet so firm | F |
For years a score they've laboured sore to save him from the worm | F |
The Kremlin walls are grimly grey but Lenin's Tomb is red | G |
And pilgrims from the Sour Lands say He sleeps and is not dead | G |
Before their eyes in peace he lies a symbol and a sign | H |
And as they pass that dome of glass they see a God Divine | H |
So Doctors plug him full of dope for if he drops to dust | I |
So will collapse their faith and hope the whole combine will bust | I |
But say Tovarich hark to me a secret I'll disclose | J |
For I did see what none did see I know what no one knows | J |
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I was a Cheko terrorist Oh I served the Soviets well | K |
Till they put me down on the bone yard list for the fear that I might tell | K |
That I might tell the thing I saw and that only I did see | A |
They held me in quod with a firing squad to make a corpse of me | A |
But I got away and here today I'm telling my tale to you | L |
Though it may sound weird by Lenin's beard so help me God it's true | L |
I slouched across that great Red Square and watched the waiting line | H |
The mongrel sons of Marx were there convened to Lenin's shrine | H |
Ten thousand men of Muscovy Mongol and Turkoman | H |
Black bonnets of the Aral Sea and Tatars of Kazan | H |
Kalmuck and Bashkir Lett and Finn Georgian Jew and Lapp | M |
Kirghiz and Kazakh crowding in to gaze at Lenin's map | M |
Aye though a score of years had run I saw them pause and pray | N |
As mourners at the Tomb of one who died but yesterday | N |
I watched them in a bleary daze of bitterness and pain | H |
For oh I missed the cheery blaze of vodka in my brain | H |
I stared my eyes were hypnotized by that saturnine host | O |
When with a start that shook my heart I saw I saw a ghost | O |
As in fogg d glass I saw him pass and peer at me and grin | H |
A man I knew a man I slew Prince Boris Mazarin | H |
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Now do not think because I drink I love the flowing bowl | P |
But liquor kills remorse and stills the anguish of the soul | P |
And there's so much I would forget stark horrors I have seen | H |
Faces and forms that haunt me yet like shadows on a screen | H |
And of these sights that mar my nights the ghastliest by far | B |
Is the death of Boris Mazarin that soldier of the Czar | B |
- | |
A mighty nobleman was he we took him by surprise | Q |
His mother son and daughters three we slew before his eyes | Q |
We tortured him with jibes and threats then mad for glut of gore | R |
Upon our reeking bayonets we nailed him to the door | R |
But he defied us to the last crying O carrion crew | L |
I'd die with joy could I destroy a hundred dogs like you | L |
I thrust my sword into his throat the blade was gay with blood | S |
We flung him to his castle moat and stamped him in its mud | S |
That mighty Cossack of the Don was dead with all his race | T |
And now I saw him coming on dire vengeance in his face | T |
Or was it some fantastic dream of my besotted brain | H |
He looked at me with eyes a gleam the man whom I had slain | H |
He looked and bade me follow him I could not help but go | U |
I joined the throng that passed along so sorrowful and slow | U |
I followed with a sense of doom that shadow gaunt and grim | V |
Into the bowels of the Tomb I followed followed him | V |
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The light within was weird and dim and icy cold the air | W |
My brow was wet with bitter sweat I stumbled on the stair | W |
I tried to cry my throat was dry I sought to grip his arm | X |
For well I knew this man I slew was there to do us harm | X |
Lo he was walking by my side his fingers clutched my own | H |
This man I knew so well had died his hand was naked bone | H |
His face was like a skull his eyes were caverns of decay | N |
And so we came to the crystal frame where lonely Lenin lay | N |
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Without a sound we shuffled round gt I sought to make a sign | H |
But like a vice his hand of ice was biting into mine | H |
With leaden pace around the place where Lenin lies at rest | Y |
We slouched I saw his bony claw go fumbling to his breast | Y |
With ghastly grin he groped within and tore his robe apart | Z |
And from the hollow of his ribs he drew his blackened heart | Z |
Ah no Oh God A bomb a BOMB And as I shrieked with dread | G |
With fiendish cry he raised it high and swung at Lenin's head | G |
Oh I was blinded by the flash and deafened by the roar | R |
And in a mess of bloody mash I wallowed on the floor | R |
Then Alps of darkness on me fell and when I saw again | H |
The leprous light 'twas in a cell and I was racked with pain | H |
And ring d around by shapes of gloom who hoped that I would die | D |
For of the crowd that crammed the Tomb the sole to live was I | D |
They told me I had dreamed a dream that must not be revealed | A2 |
But by their eyes of evil gleam I knew my doom was sealed | A2 |
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I need not tell how from my cell in Lubianka gaol | N |
I broke away but listen here's the point of all my tale | N |
Outside the Gay Pay Oo none knew of that grim scene of gore | R |
They closed the Tomb and then they threw it open as before | R |
And there was Lenin stiff and still a symbol and a sign | H |
And rancid races come to thrill and wonder at his Shrine | H |
And hold the thought if Lenin rot the Soviets will decay | N |
And there he sleeps and calm he keeps his watch and ward for aye | D |
Yet if you pass that frame of glass peer closely at his phiz | T |
So stern and firm it mocks the worm it looks like wax and is | T |
They tell you he's a mummy don't you make that bright mistake | B2 |
I tell you he's a dummy aye a fiction and a fake | B2 |
This eye beheld the bloody bomb that bashed him on the bean | H |
I heard the crash I saw the flash yet there he lies serene | H |
And by the roar that rocked the Tomb I ask how could that be | A |
But if you doubt that deed of doom just go yourself and see | A |
You think I'm mad or drunk or both Well I don't care a damn | H |
I tell you this their Lenin is a waxen show case SHAM | H |
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Such was the yarn he handed me | A |
Down there in Casey's Bar | B |
That Rooshun bug with the scrambled mug | C |
From the land of the Commissar | B |
It may be true I leave it you | L |
To figger out how far | B |
Robert Service
(1)
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