While The Bannock Bakes Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCD EAEAFGHG IBIBJKJL MNMNOPOP QRQRMSMS TUDUVWXW YAYAZWZW XA2XA2B2AC2A D2E2D2E2YWYW F2A2F2A2G2H2G2H2 SGI2GJ2A2J2A2 E2K2E2K2L2AL2ALight up your pipe again old chum and sit awhile with me | A |
I've got to watch the bannock bake how restful is the air | B |
You'd little think that we were somewhere north of Sixty three | A |
Though where I don't exactly know and don't precisely care | B |
The man size mountains palisade us round on every side | C |
The river is a flop with fish and ripples silver clear | D |
The midnight sunshine brims yon cleft we think it's the Divide | C |
We'll get there in a month maybe or maybe in a year | D |
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It doesn't matter does it pal We're of that breed of men | E |
With whom the world of wine and cards and women disagree | A |
Your trouble was a roofless game of poker now and then | E |
And raising up my elbow that's what got away with me | A |
We're merely Undesirables artistic more or less | F |
My horny hands are Chopin wise you quote your Browning well | G |
And yet we're fooling round for gold in this damned wilderness | H |
The joke is if we found it we would both go straight to hell | G |
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Well maybe we won't find it and at least we've got the life | I |
We're both as brown as berries and could wrestle with a bear | B |
That bannock's raising nicely pal just jab it with your knife | I |
Fine specimens of manhood they would reckon us out there | B |
It's the tracking and the packing and the poling in the sun | J |
It's the sleeping in the open it's the rugged unfaked food | K |
It's the snow shoe and the paddle and the campfire and the gun | J |
And when I think of what I was I know that it is good | L |
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Just think of how we've poled all day up this strange little stream | M |
Since life began no eye of man has seen this place before | N |
How fearless all the wild things are the banks with goose grass gleam | M |
And there's a bronzy musk rat sitting sniffing at his door | N |
A mother duck with brood of ten comes squattering along | O |
The tawny white winged ptarmigan are flying all about | P |
And in that swirly golden pool a restless gleaming throng | O |
The trout are waiting till we condescend to take them out | P |
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Ah yes it's good I'll bet that there's no doctor like the Wild | Q |
Just turn that bannock over there it's getting nicely brown | R |
I might be in my grave by now forgotten and reviled | Q |
Or rotting like a sickly cur in some far foreign town | R |
I might be that vile thing I was it all seems like a dream | M |
I owed a man a grudge one time that only life could pay | S |
And yet it's half forgotten now how petty these things seem | M |
But that's another story pal I'll tell it you some day | S |
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How strange two irresponsibles should chum away up here | T |
But round the Arctic Circle friends are few and far between | U |
We've shared the same camp fire and tent for nigh on seven year | D |
And never had a word that wasn't cheering and serene | U |
We've halved the toil and split the spoil and borne each other's packs | V |
By all the Wild's freemasonry we're brothers tried and true | W |
We've swept on danger side by side and fought it back to back | X |
And you would die for me old pal and I would die for you | W |
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Now there was that time I got lost in Rory Bory Land | Y |
How quick the blizzards sweep on one across that Polar sea | A |
You formed a rescue crew of One and saw a frozen hand | Y |
That stuck out of a drift of snow and partner it was Me | A |
But I got even did I not that day the paddle broke | Z |
White water on the Coppermine a rock a split canoe | W |
Two fellows struggling in the foam one couldn't swim a stroke | Z |
A half drowned man I dragged ashore and partner it was You | W |
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In Rory Borealis Land the winter's long and black | X |
The silence seems a solid thing shot through with wolfish woe | A2 |
And rowelled by the eager stars the skies vault vastly back | X |
And man seems but a little mite on that weird lit plateau | A2 |
No thing to do but smoke and yarn of wild and misspent lives | B2 |
Beside the camp fire there we sat what tales you told to me | A |
Of love and hate and chance and fate and temporary wives | C2 |
In Rory Borealis Land beside the Arctic Sea | A |
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One yarn you told me in those days I can remember still | D2 |
It seemed as if I visioned it so sharp you sketched it in | E2 |
Bellona was the name I think a coast town in Brazil | D2 |
Where nobody did anything but serenade and sin | E2 |
I saw it all the jewelled sea the golden scythe of sand | Y |
The stately pillars of the palms the feathery bamboo | W |
The red roofed houses and the swart sun dominated land | Y |
The people ever children and the heavens ever blue | W |
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You told me of that girl of yours that blossom of old Spain | F2 |
All glamour grace and witchery all passion verve and glow | A2 |
How maddening she must have been You made me see her plain | F2 |
There by our little camp fire in the silence and the snow | A2 |
You loved her and she loved you She'd a husband too I think | G2 |
A doctor chap you told me whom she treated like a dog | H2 |
A white man living on the beach a hopeless slave to drink | G2 |
Just turn that bannock over there that's propped against the log | H2 |
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That story seemed to strike me pal it happens every day | S |
You had to go away awhile then somehow it befell | G |
The doctor chap discovered gave her up and disappeared | I2 |
You came back tired of her in time there's nothing more to tell | G |
Hist see those willows silvering where swamp and river meet | J2 |
Just reach me up my rifle quick that's Mister Moose I know | A2 |
There now I've got him dead to rights but hell we've lots to eat | J2 |
I don't believe in taking life we'll let the beggar go | A2 |
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Heigh ho I'm tired the bannock's cooked it's time we both turned in | E2 |
The morning mist is coral kissed the morning sky is gold | K2 |
The camp fire's a confessional what funny yarns we spin | E2 |
It sort of made me think a bit that story that you told | K2 |
The fig leaf belt and Rory Bory are such odd extremes | L2 |
Yet after all how very small this old world seems to be | A |
Yes that was quite a yarn old pal and yet to me it seems | L2 |
You missed the point the point is that the doctor chap was ME | A |
Robert Service
(1)
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