The Parson's Son Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AAA BCDD EAFF GGHH IIJJ HKLL MMNN OOPP QQDD RRSS TTFF AAA| This is the song of the parson's son as he squats in his shack alone | A |
| On the wild weird nights when the Northern Lights shoot up from the frozen zone | A |
| And it's sixty below and couched in the snow the hungry huskies moan | A |
| - | |
| I'm one of the Arctic brotherhood I'm an old time pioneer | B |
| I came with the first O God how I've cursed this Yukon but still I'm here | C |
| I've sweated athirst in its summer heat I've frozen and starved in its cold | D |
| I've followed my dreams by its thousand streams I've toiled and moiled for its gold | D |
| - | |
| Look at my eyes been snow blind twice look where my foot's half gone | E |
| And that gruesome scar on my left cheek where the frost fiend bit to the bone | A |
| Each one a brand of this devil's land where I've played and I've lost the game | F |
| A broken wreck with a craze for 'hooch' and never a cent to my name | F |
| - | |
| This mining is only a gamble the worst is as good as the best | G |
| I was in with the bunch and I might have come out right on top with the rest | G |
| With Cormack Ladue and Macdonald O God but it's hell to think | H |
| Of the thousands and thousands I've squandered on cards and women and drink | H |
| - | |
| In the early days we were just a few and we hunted and fished around | I |
| Nor dreamt by our lonely camp fires of the wealth that lay under the ground | I |
| We traded in skins and whiskey and I've often slept under the shade | J |
| Of that lone birch tree on Bonanza where the first big find was made | J |
| - | |
| We were just like a great big family and every man had his squaw | H |
| And we lived such a wild free fearless life beyond the pale of the law | K |
| Till sudden there came a whisper and it maddened us every man | L |
| And I got in on Bonanza before the big rush began | L |
| - | |
| Oh those Dawson days and the sin and the blaze and the town all open wide | M |
| If God made me in His likeness sure He let the devil inside | M |
| But we all were mad both the good and the bad and as for the women well | N |
| No spot on the map in so short a space has hustled more souls to hell | N |
| - | |
| Money was just like dirt there easy to get and to spend | O |
| I was all caked in on a dance hall jade but she shook me in the end | O |
| It put me queer and for near a year I never drew sober breath | P |
| Till I found myself in the bughouse ward with a claim staked out on death | P |
| - | |
| Twenty years in the Yukon struggling along its creeks | Q |
| Roaming its giant valleys scaling its god like peaks | Q |
| Bathed in its fiery sunsets fighting its fiendish cold | D |
| Twenty years in the Yukon twenty years and I'm old | D |
| - | |
| Old and weak but no matter there's 'hooch' in the bottle still | R |
| I'll hitch up the dogs to morrow and mush down the trail to Bill | R |
| It's so long dark and I'm lonesome I'll just lay down on the bed | S |
| To morrow I'll go to morrow I guess I'll play on the red | S |
| - | |
| Come Kit your pony is saddled I'm waiting dear in the court | T |
| Minnie you devil I'll kill you if you skip with that flossy sport | T |
| How much does it go to the pan Bill play up School and play the game | F |
| Our Father which art in heaven hallowed be Thy name | F |
| - | |
| This was the song of the parson's son as he lay in his bunk alone | A |
| Ere the fire went out and the cold crept in and his blue lips ceased to moan | A |
| And the hunger maddened malamutes had torn him flesh from bone | A |
Robert Service
(1)
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