Grey Gull Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCD EFEFGAHA IJIKLMLM ANANOPOP QRQRPSPS OTOTUPVPP| 'Twas on an iron icy day | A |
| I saw a pirate gull down plane | B |
| And hover in a wistful way | A |
| Nigh where my chickens picked their grain | B |
| An outcast gull so grey and old | C |
| Withered of leg I watched it hop | D |
| By hunger goaded and by cold | C |
| To where each fowl full filled its crop | D |
| - | |
| They hospitably welcomed it | E |
| And at the food rack gave it place | F |
| It ate and ate it preened a bit | E |
| By way way of gratitude and grace | F |
| It parleyed with my barnyard cock | G |
| Then resolutely winged away | A |
| But I am fey in feather talk | H |
| And this is what I heard it say | A |
| - | |
| I know that you and all your tribe | I |
| Are shielded warm and fenced from fear | J |
| With food and comfort you would bribe | I |
| My weary wings to linger here | K |
| An outlaw scarred and leather lean | L |
| I battle with the winds of woe | M |
| You think me scaly and unclean | L |
| And yet my soul you do not know | M |
| - | |
| I storm the golden gates of day | A |
| I wing the silver lanes of night | N |
| I plumb the deep for finny prey | A |
| On wave I sleep in tempest height | N |
| Conceived was I by sea and sky | O |
| Their elements are fused in me | P |
| Of brigand birds that float and fly | O |
| I am the freest of the free | P |
| - | |
| From peak to plain from palm to pine | Q |
| I coast creation at my will | R |
| The chartless solitudes are mine | Q |
| And no one seeks to do me ill | R |
| Until some cauldron of the sea | P |
| Shall gulp for me and I shall cease | S |
| Oh I have lived enormously | P |
| And I shall have prodigious peace | S |
| - | |
| With yellow bill and beady eye | O |
| This spoke I think that old grey gull | T |
| And as I watched it Southward fly | O |
| Life seemed to be a sudden dull | T |
| For I have often held this thought | U |
| If I could change this mouldy me | P |
| By heaven I would choose the lot | V |
| Of all the gypsy birds to be | P |
| A gull that spans the spacious sea | P |
Robert William Service
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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