The Shooting Of Dan Mcgrew Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDDBB EEFFBB GGHHII JKLLMM NNOOBB KJPPBB QQRRI ISTBB UUBB VVBBA bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon | A |
The kid that handles the music box was hitting a jag time tune | A |
Back of the bar in a solo game sat Dangerous Dan McGrew | B |
And watching his luck was his light o' love the lady that's known as Lou | B |
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When out of the night which was fifty below and into the din and the glare | C |
There stumbled a miner fresh from the creeks dog dirty and loaded for bear | C |
He looked like a man with a foot in the grave and scarcely the strength of a louse | D |
Yet he tilted a poke of dust on the bar and he called for drinks for the house | D |
There was none could place the stranger's face though we searched ourselves for a clue | B |
But we drank his health and the last to drink was Dangerous Dan McGrew | B |
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There's men that somehow just grip your eyes and hold them hard like a spell | E |
And such was he and he looked to me like a man who had lived in hell | E |
With a face most hair and the dreary stare of a dog whose day is done | F |
As he watered the green stuff in his glass and the drops fell one by one | F |
Then I got to figgering who he was and wondering what he'd do | B |
And I turned my head and there watching him was the lady that's known as Lou | B |
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His eyes went rubbering round the room and he seemed in a kind of daze | G |
Till at last that old piano fell in the way of his wandering gaze | G |
The rag time kid was having a drink there was no one else on the stool | H |
So the stranger stumbles across the room and flops down there like a fool | H |
In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat and I saw him sway | I |
Then he clutched the keys with his talon hands my God but that man could play | I |
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Were you ever out in the Great Alone when the moon was awful clear | J |
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could HEAR | K |
With only the howl of a timber wolf and you camped there in the cold | L |
A half dead thing in a stark dead world clean mad for the muck called gold | L |
While high overhead green yellow and red the North Lights swept in bars | M |
Then you've a haunch what the music meant hunger and night and the stars | M |
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And hunger not of the belly kind that's banished with bacon and beans | N |
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means | N |
For a fireside far from the cares that are four walls and a roof above | O |
But oh so cramful of cosy joy and crowned with a woman's love | O |
A woman dearer than all the world and true as Heaven is true | B |
God how ghastly she looks through her rouge the lady that's known as Lou | B |
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Then on a sudden the music changed so soft that you scarce could hear | K |
But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear | J |
That someone had stolen the woman you loved that her love was a devil's lie | P |
That your guts were gone and the best for you was to crawl away and die | P |
'Twas the crowning cry of a heart's despair and it thrilled you through and through | B |
I guess I'll make it a spread misere said Dangerous Dan McGrew | B |
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The music almost died away then it burst like a pent up flood | Q |
And it seemed to say Repay repay and my eyes were blind with blood | Q |
The thought came back of an ancient wrong and it stung like a frozen lash | R |
And the lust awoke to kill to kill then the music stopped with a crash | R |
And the stranger turned and his eyes they burned in a most peculiar way | I |
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In a buckskin shirt that was glazed with dirt he sat and I saw him sway | I |
Then his lips went in in a kind of grin and he spoke and his voice was calm | S |
And Boys says he you don't know me and none of you care a damn | T |
But I want to state and my words are straight and I'll bet my poke they're true | B |
That one of you is a hound of hell and that one is Dan McGrew | B |
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Then I ducked my head and the lights went out and two guns blazed in the dark | U |
And a woman screamed and the lights went up and two men lay stiff and stark | U |
Pitched on his head and pumped full of lead was Dangerous Dan McGrew | B |
While the man from the creeks lay clutched to the breast of the lady that's known as Lou | B |
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These are the simple facts of the case and I guess I ought to know | V |
They say that the stranger was crazed with hooch and I'm not denying it's so | V |
I'm not so wise as the lawyer guys but strictly between us two | B |
The woman that kissed him and pinched his poke was the lady that's known as Lou | B |
Robert Service
(1)
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