The Faceless Man Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBA CCDDEFFE GGHHIIJJKKGG AALEMMNNCCOP GGGGQQ JQJJQQ RGRGGGSGSGTSTSUU GGGGGGRRSGGS GGGGGGVVWW SGSGJXJXGHHGJCJC GGGGGNGN YYZGZGSSI'm dead | A |
Officially I'm dead Their hope is past | B |
How long I stood as missing Now at last | B |
I'm dead | A |
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Look in my face no likeness can you see | C |
No tiny trace of him they knew as me | C |
How terrible the change | D |
Even my eyes are strange | D |
So keyed are they to pain | E |
That if I chanced to meet | F |
My mother in the street | F |
She'd look at me in vain | E |
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When she got home I think she'd say | G |
I saw the saddest sight to day | G |
A poilu with no face at all | H |
Far better in the fight to fall | H |
Than go through life like that I think | I |
Poor fellow how he made me shrink | I |
No face Just eyes that seemed to stare | J |
At me with anguish and despair | J |
This ghastly war I'm almost cheered | K |
To think my son who disappeared | K |
My boy so handsome and so gay | G |
Might have come home like him to day | G |
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I'm dead I think it's better to be dead | A |
When little children look at you with dread | A |
And when you know your coming home again | L |
Will only give the ones who love you pain | E |
Ah who can help but shrink One cannot blame | M |
They see the hideous husk not not the flame | M |
Of sacrifice and love that burns within | N |
While souls of satyrs riddled through with sin | N |
Have bodies fair and excellent to see | C |
Mon Dieu how different we all would be | C |
If this our flesh was ordained to express | O |
Our spirit's beauty or its ugliness | P |
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Oh you who look at me with fear to day | G |
And shrink despite yourselves and turn away | G |
It was for you I suffered woe accurst | G |
For you I braved red battle at its worst | G |
For you I fought and bled and maimed and slew | Q |
For you for you | Q |
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For you I faced hell fury and despair | J |
The reeking horror of it all I knew | Q |
I flung myself into the furnace there | J |
I faced the flame that scorched me with its glare | J |
I drank unto the dregs the devil's brew | Q |
Look at me now for you and you and you | Q |
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- | |
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I'm thinking of the time we said good by | R |
We took our dinner in Duval's that night | G |
Just little Jacqueline Lucette and I | R |
We tried our very utmost to be bright | G |
We laughed And yet our eyes they weren't gay | G |
I sought all kinds of cheering things to say | G |
Don't grieve I told them Soon the time will pass | S |
My next permission will come quickly round | G |
We'll all meet at the Gare du Montparnasse | S |
Three times I've come already safe and sound | G |
But oh I thought it's harder every time | T |
After a home that seems like Paradise | S |
To go back to the vermin and the slime | T |
The weariness the want the sacrifice | S |
Pray God I said the war may soon be done | U |
But no oh never never till we've won | U |
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Then to the station quietly we walked | G |
I had my rifle and my haversack | G |
My heavy boots my blankets on my back | G |
And though it hurt us cheerfully we talked | G |
We chatted bravely at the platform gate | G |
I watched the clock My train must go at eight | G |
One minute to the hour we kissed good by | R |
Then oh they both broke down with piteous cry | R |
I went Their way was barred they could not pass | S |
I looked back as the train began to start | G |
Once more I ran with anguish at my heart | G |
And through the bars I kissed my little lass | S |
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Three years have gone they've waited day by day | G |
I never came I did not even write | G |
For when I saw my face was such a sight | G |
I thought that I had better stay away | G |
And so I took the name of one who died | G |
A friendless friend who perished by my side | G |
In Prussian prison camps three years of hell | V |
I kept my secret oh I kept it well | V |
And now I'm free but none shall ever know | W |
They think I died out there it's better so | W |
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To day I passed my wife in widow's weeds | S |
I brushed her arm She did not even look | G |
So white so pinched her face my heart still bleeds | S |
And at the touch of her oh how I shook | G |
And then last night I passed the window where | J |
They sat together I could see them clear | X |
The lamplight softly gleaming on their hair | J |
And all the room so full of cozy cheer | X |
My wife was sewing while my daughter read | G |
I even saw my portrait on the wall | H |
I wanted to rush in to tell them all | H |
And then I cursed myself You're dead you're dead | G |
God how I watched them from the darkness there | J |
Clutching the dripping branches of a tree | C |
Peering as close as ever I might dare | J |
And sobbing sobbing oh so bitterly | C |
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But no it's folly and I mustn't stay | G |
To morrow I am going far away | G |
I'll find a ship and sail before the mast | G |
In some wild land I'll bury all the past | G |
I'll live on lonely shores and there forget | G |
Or tell myself that there has never been | N |
The gay and tender courage of Lucette | G |
The little loving arms of Jacqueline | N |
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A man lonely upon a lonely isle | Y |
Sometimes I'll look towards the North and smile | Y |
To think they're happy and they both believe | Z |
I died for France and that I lie at rest | G |
And for my glory's sake they've ceased to grieve | Z |
And hold my memory sacred Ah that's best | G |
And in that thought I'll find my joy and peace | S |
As there alone I wait the Last Release | S |
Robert Service
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