The Song Of The Mouth-organ Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBDEFEF GHGHAEAE EIEIJGJG KLKLAMNM OPOPBQRQ SECELTUT VWVWXYXY EZEZA2B2BB2 C2HC2HEUOU| With apologies to the singer of the Song of the Banjo | A |
| - | |
| I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone | B |
| I'm beloved by the Legion of the Lost | C |
| I haven't got a vox humana tone | B |
| And a dime or two will satisfy my cost | D |
| I don't attempt your high falutin' flights | E |
| I am more or less uncertain on the key | F |
| But I tell you boys there's lots and lots of nights | E |
| When you've taken mighty comfort out of me | F |
| - | |
| I weigh an ounce or two and I'm so small | G |
| You can pack me in the pocket of your vest | H |
| And when at night so wearily you crawl | G |
| Into your bunk and stretch your limbs to rest | H |
| You take me out and play me soft and low | A |
| The simple songs that trouble your heartstrings | E |
| The tunes you used to fancy long ago | A |
| Before you made a rotten mess of things | E |
| - | |
| Then a dreamy look will come into your eyes | E |
| And you break off in the middle of a note | I |
| And then with just the dreariest of sighs | E |
| You drop me in the pocket of your coat | I |
| But somehow I have bucked you up a bit | J |
| And as you turn around and face the wall | G |
| You don't feel quite so spineless and unfit | J |
| You're not so bad a fellow after all | G |
| - | |
| Do you recollect the bitter Arctic night | K |
| Your camp beside the canyon on the trail | L |
| Your tent a tiny square of orange light | K |
| The moon above consumptive like and pale | L |
| Your supper cooked your little stove aglow | A |
| You tired but snug and happy as a child | M |
| Then 'twas Turkey in the Straw till your lips were nearly raw | N |
| And you hurled your bold defiance at the Wild | M |
| - | |
| Do you recollect the flashing lashing pain | O |
| The gulf of humid blackness overhead | P |
| The lightning making rapiers of the rain | O |
| The cattle horns like candles of the dead | P |
| You sitting on your bronco there alone | B |
| In your slicker saddle sore and sick with cold | Q |
| Do you think the silent herd did not hear The Mocking Bird | R |
| Or relish Silver Threads among the Gold | Q |
| - | |
| Do you recollect the wild Magellan coast | S |
| The head winds and the icy roaring seas | E |
| The nights you thought that everything was lost | C |
| The days you toiled in water to your knees | E |
| The frozen ratlines shrieking in the gale | L |
| The hissing steeps and gulfs of livid foam | T |
| When you cheered your messmates nine with Ben Bolt and Clementine | U |
| And Dixie Land and Seeing Nellie Home | T |
| - | |
| Let the jammy banjo voice the Younger Son | V |
| Who waits for his remittance to arrive | W |
| I represent the grimy gritty one | V |
| Who sweats his bones to keep himself alive | W |
| Who's up against the real thing from his birth | X |
| Whose heritage is hard and bitter toil | Y |
| I voice the weary smeary ones of earth | X |
| The helots of the sea and of the soil | Y |
| - | |
| I'm the Steinway of strange mischief and mischance | E |
| I'm the Stradivarius of blank defeat | Z |
| In the down world when the devil leads the dance | E |
| I am simply and symbolically meet | Z |
| I'm the irrepressive spirit of mankind | A2 |
| I'm the small boy playing knuckle down with Death | B2 |
| At the end of all things known where God's rubbish heap is thrown | B |
| I shrill impudent triumph at a breath | B2 |
| - | |
| I'm a humble little bit of tin and horn | C2 |
| I'm a byword I'm a plaything I'm a jest | H |
| The virtuoso looks on me with scorn | C2 |
| But there's times when I am better than the best | H |
| Ask the stoker and the sailor of the sea | E |
| Ask the mucker and the hewer of the pine | U |
| Ask the herder of the plain ask the gleaner of the grain | O |
| There's a lowly loving kingdom and it's mine | U |
Robert Service
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Doug Blair: Service is remembered for his narratives of the far north, the wilderness, the Gold Rush. And perhaps the experiences of a medic in World War One. But there is another series about a starving Artist learning about raw life in Bohemian Paris. Canada boasts of this writer and his magic
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