The Ballad Of Pious Pete Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCCDDEEFF AAGGHHII JJKKLLAAAM JJNNOOAA PPQQFF RRSSTUPP SSVVWWXX WWYYZZWWA2A2 B2B2FF| The North has got him Yukonism | A |
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| I tried to refine that neighbor of mine honest to God I did | B |
| I grieved for his fate and early and late I watched over him like a kid | B |
| I gave him excuse I bore his abuse in every way that I could | C |
| I swore to prevail I camped on his trail I plotted and planned for his good | C |
| By day and by night I strove in men's sight to gather him into the fold | D |
| With precept and prayer with hope and despair in hunger and hardship and cold | D |
| I followed him into Gehennas of sin I sat where the sirens sit | E |
| In the shade of the Pole for the sake of his soul I strove with the powers of the Pit | E |
| I shadowed him down to the scrofulous town I dragged him from dissolute brawls | F |
| But I killed the galoot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls | F |
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| God knows what I did he should seek to be rid of one who would save him from shame | A |
| God knows what I bore that night when he swore and bade me make tracks from his claim | A |
| I started to tell of the horrors of hell when sudden his eyes lit like coals | G |
| And Chuck it says he don't persecute me with your cant and your saving of souls | G |
| I'll swear I was mild as I'd be with a child but he called me the son of a slut | H |
| And grabbing his gun with a leap and a run he threatened my face with the butt | H |
| So what could I do I leave it to you With curses he harried me forth | I |
| Then he was alone and I was alone and over us menaced the North | I |
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| Our cabins were near I could see I could hear but between us there rippled the creek | J |
| And all summer through with a rancor that grew he would pass me and never would speak | J |
| Then a shuddery breath like the coming of Death crept down from the peaks far away | K |
| The water was still the twilight was chill the sky was a tatter of gray | K |
| Swift came the Big Cold and opal and gold the lights of the witches arose | L |
| The frost tyrant clinched and the valley was cinched by the stark and cadaverous snows | L |
| The trees were like lace where the star beams could chase each leaf was a jewel agleam | A |
| The soft white hush lapped the Northland and wrapped us round in a crystalline dream | A |
| So still I could hear quite loud in my ear the swish of the pinions of time | A |
| So bright I could see as plain as could be the wings of God's angels ashine | M |
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| As I read in the Book I would oftentimes look to that cabin just over the creek | J |
| Ah me it was sad and evil and bad two neighbors who never would speak | J |
| I knew that full well like a devil in hell he was hatching out early and late | N |
| A system to bear through the frost spangled air the warm crimson waves of his hate | N |
| I only could peer and shudder and fear 'twas ever so ghastly and still | O |
| But I knew over there in his lonely despair he was plotting me terrible ill | O |
| I knew that he nursed a malice accurst like the blast of a winnowing flame | A |
| I pleaded aloud for a shield for a shroud Oh God then calamity came | A |
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| Mad If I'm mad then you too are mad but it's all in the point of view | P |
| If you'd looked at them things gallivantin' on wings all purple and green and blue | P |
| If you'd noticed them twist as they mounted and hissed like scorpions dim in the dark | Q |
| If you'd seen them rebound with a horrible sound and spitefully spitting a spark | Q |
| If you'd watched IT with dread as it hissed by your bed that thing with the feelers that crawls | F |
| You'd have settled the brute that attempted to shoot electricity into your walls | F |
| - | |
| Oh some they were blue and they slithered right through they were silent and squashy and round | R |
| And some they were green they were wriggly and lean they writhed with so hateful a sound | R |
| My blood seemed to freeze I fell on my knees my face was a white splash of dread | S |
| Oh the Green and the Blue they were gruesome to view but the worst of them all were the Red | S |
| They came through the door they came through the floor they came through the moss creviced logs | T |
| They were savage and dire they were whiskered with fire they bickered like malamute dogs | U |
| They ravined in rings like iniquitous things they gulped down the Green and the Blue | P |
| I crinkled with fear whene'er they drew near and nearer and nearer they drew | P |
| - | |
| And then came the crown of Horror's grim crown the monster so loathsomely red | S |
| Each eye was a pin that shot out and in as squidlike it oozed to my bed | S |
| So softly it crept with feelers that swept and quivered like fine copper wire | V |
| Its belly was white with a sulphurous light it jaws were a drooling with fire | V |
| It came and it came I could breathe of its flame but never a wink could I look | W |
| I thrust in its maw the Fount of the Law I fended it off with the Book | W |
| I was weak oh so weak but I thrilled at its shriek as wildly it fled in the night | X |
| And deathlike I lay till the dawn of the day Was ever so welcome the light | X |
| - | |
| I loaded my gun at the rise of the sun to his cabin so softly I slunk | W |
| My neighbor was there in the frost freighted air all wrapped in a robe in his bunk | W |
| It muffled his moans it outlined his bones as feebly he twisted about | Y |
| His gums were so black and his lips seemed to crack and his teeth all were loosening out | Y |
| 'Twas a death's head that peered through the tangle of beard 'twas a face I will never forget | Z |
| Sunk eyes full of woe and they troubled me so with their pleadings and anguish and yet | Z |
| As I rested my gaze in a misty amaze on the scurvy degenerate wreck | W |
| I thought of the Things with the dragon fly wings then laid I my gun on his neck | W |
| He gave out a cry that was faint as a sigh like a perishing malamute | A2 |
| And he says unto me I'm converted says he for Christ's sake Peter don't shoot | A2 |
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| They're taking me out with an escort about and under a sergeant's care | B2 |
| I am humbled indeed for I'm 'cuffed to a Swede that thinks he's a millionaire | B2 |
| But it's all Gospel true what I'm telling to you up there where the Shadow falls | F |
| That I settled Sam Noot when he started to shoot electricity into my walls | F |
Robert Service
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