The Prospector Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCD EFEFGHGH IJIJHKHK LMLMNONO PGPGQBQB RSRSOTOU VWVWXNXN YGYGHZHZ TFTFA2B2A2B2 C2D2C2D2E2F2E2F2 G2H2G2H2I strolled up old Bonanza where I staked in ninety eight | A |
A purpose to revisit the old claim | B |
I kept thinking mighty sadly of the funny ways of Fate | A |
And the lads who once were with me in the game | B |
Poor boys they're down and outers and there's scarcely one to day | C |
Can show a dozen colors in his poke | D |
And me I'm still prospecting old and battered gaunt and gray | C |
And I'm looking for a grub stake and I'm broke | D |
- | |
I strolled up old Bonanza The same old moon looked down | E |
The same old landmarks seemed to yearn to me | F |
But the cabins all were silent and the flat once like a town | E |
Was mighty still and lonesome like to see | F |
There were piles and piles of tailings where we toiled with pick and pan | G |
And turning round a bend I heard a roar | H |
And there a giant gold ship of the very newest plan | G |
Was tearing chunks of pay dirt from the shore | H |
- | |
It wallowed in its water bed it burrowed heaved and swung | I |
It gnawed its way ahead with grunts and sighs | J |
Its bill of fare was rock and sand the tailings were its dung | I |
It glared around with fierce electric eyes | J |
Full fifty buckets crammed its maw it bellowed out for more | H |
It looked like some great monster in the gloom | K |
With two to feed its sateless greed it worked for seven score | H |
And I sighed Ah old time miner here's your doom | K |
- | |
The idle windlass turns to rust the sagging sluice box falls | L |
The holes you digged are water to the brim | M |
Your little sod roofed cabins with the snugly moss chinked walls | L |
Are deathly now and mouldering and dim | M |
The battle field is silent where of old you fought it out | N |
The claims you fiercely won are lost and sold | O |
But there's a little army that they'll never put to rout | N |
The men who simply live to seek the gold | O |
- | |
The men who can't remember when they learned to swing a pack | P |
Or in what lawless land the quest began | G |
The solitary seeker with his grub stake on his back | P |
The restless buccaneer of pick and pan | G |
On the mesas of the Southland on the tundras of the North | Q |
You will find us changed in face but still the same | B |
And it isn't need it isn't greed that sends us faring forth | Q |
It's the fever it's the glory of the game | B |
- | |
For once you've panned the speckled sand and seen the bonny dust | R |
Its peerless brightness blinds you like a spell | S |
It's little else you care about you go because you must | R |
And you feel that you could follow it to hell | S |
You'd follow it in hunger and you'd follow it in cold | O |
You'd follow it in solitude and pain | T |
And when you're stiff and battened down let someone whisper Gold | O |
You're lief to rise and follow it again | U |
- | |
Yet look you if I find the stuff it's just like so much dirt | V |
I fling it to the four winds like a child | W |
It's wine and painted women and the things that do me hurt | V |
Till I crawl back beggared broken to the Wild | W |
Till I crawl back sapped and sodden to my grub stake and my tent | X |
There's a city there's an army hear them shout | N |
There's the gold in millions millions but I haven't got a cent | X |
And oh it's me it's me that found it out | N |
- | |
It was my dream that made it good my dream that made me go | Y |
To lands of dread and death disprized of man | G |
But oh I've known a glory that their hearts will never know | Y |
When I picked the first big nugget from my pan | G |
It's still my dream my dauntless dream that drives me forth once more | H |
To seek and starve and suffer in the Vast | Z |
That heaps my heart with eager hope that glimmers on before | H |
My dream that will uplift me to the last | Z |
- | |
Perhaps I am stark crazy but there's none of you too sane | T |
It's just a little matter of degree | F |
My hobby is to hunt out gold it's fortressed in my brain | T |
It's life and love and wife and home to me | F |
And I'll strike it yes I'll strike it I've a hunch I cannot fail | A2 |
I've a vision I've a prompting I've a call | B2 |
I hear the hoarse stampeding of an army on my trail | A2 |
To the last the greatest gold camp of them all | B2 |
- | |
Beyond the shark tooth ranges sawing savage at the sky | C2 |
There's a lowering land no white man ever struck | D2 |
There's gold there's gold in millions and I'll find it if I die | C2 |
And I'm going there once more to try my luck | D2 |
Maybe I'll fail what matter It's a mandate it's a vow | E2 |
And when in lands of dreariness and dread | F2 |
You seek the last lone frontier far beyond your frontiers now | E2 |
You will find the old prospector silent dead | F2 |
- | |
You will find a tattered tent pole with a ragged robe below it | G2 |
You will find a rusted gold pan on the sod | H2 |
You will find the claim I'm seeking with my bones as stakes to show it | G2 |
But I've sought the last Recorder and He's God | H2 |
Robert Service
(1)
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