The Ballad Of One-eyed Mike Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AAA BBCC DDEE FFGG HHII IIJJ KKLL MMNN OOPP QQPP RRST UUII KKUU QQQ| This is the tale that was told to me by the man with the crystal eye | A |
| As I smoked my pipe in the camp fire light and the Glories swept the sky | A |
| As the Northlights gleamed and curved and streamed and the bottle of hooch was dry | A |
| - | |
| A man once aimed that my life be shamed and wrought me a deathly wrong | B |
| I vowed one day I would well repay but the heft of his hate was strong | B |
| He thonged me East and he thonged me West he harried me back and forth | C |
| Till I fled in fright from his peerless spite to the bleak bald headed North | C |
| - | |
| And there I lay and for many a day I hatched plan after plan | D |
| For a golden haul of the wherewithal to crush and to kill my man | D |
| And there I strove and there I clove through the drift of icy streams | E |
| And there I fought and there I sought for the pay streak of my dreams | E |
| - | |
| So twenty years with their hopes and fears and smiles and tears and such | F |
| Went by and left me long bereft of hope of the Midas touch | F |
| About as fat as a chancel rat and lo despite my will | G |
| In the weary fight I had clean lost sight of the man I sought to kill | G |
| - | |
| 'Twas so far away that evil day when I prayed to the Prince of Gloom | H |
| For the savage strength and the sullen length of life to work his doom | H |
| Nor sign nor word had I seen or heard and it happed so long ago | I |
| My youth was gone and my memory wan and I willed it even so | I |
| - | |
| It fell one night in the waning light by the Yukon's oily flow | I |
| I smoked and sat as I marvelled at the sky's port winey glow | I |
| Till it paled away to an absinthe gray and the river seemed to shrink | J |
| All wobbly flakes and wriggling snakes and goblin eyes a wink | J |
| - | |
| 'Twas weird to see and it 'wildered me in a queer hypnotic dream | K |
| Till I saw a spot like an inky blot come floating down the stream | K |
| It bobbed and swung it sheered and hung it romped round in a ring | L |
| It seemed to play in a tricksome way it sure was a merry thing | L |
| - | |
| In freakish flights strange oily lights came fluttering round its head | M |
| Like butterflies of a monster size then I knew it for the Dead | M |
| Its face was rubbed and slicked and scrubbed as smooth as a shaven pate | N |
| In the silver snakes that the water makes it gleamed like a dinner plate | N |
| - | |
| It gurgled near and clear and clear and large and large it grew | O |
| It stood upright in a ring of light and it looked me through and through | O |
| It weltered round with a woozy sound and ere I could retreat | P |
| With the witless roll of a sodden soul it wantoned to my feet | P |
| - | |
| And here I swear by this Cross I wear I heard that floater say | Q |
| I am the man from whom you ran the man you sought to slay | Q |
| That you may note and gaze and gloat and say Revenge is sweet' | P |
| In the grit and grime of the river's slime I am rotting at your feet | P |
| - | |
| The ill we rue we must e'en undo though it rive us bone from bone | R |
| So it came about that I sought you out for I prayed I might atone | R |
| I did you wrong and for long and long I sought where you might live | S |
| And now you're found though I'm dead and drowned I beg you to forgive | T |
| - | |
| So sad it seemed and its cheek bones gleamed and its fingers flicked the shore | U |
| And it lapped and lay in a weary way and its hands met to implore | U |
| That I gently said Poor restless dead I would never work you woe | I |
| Though the wrong you rue you can ne'er undo I forgave you long ago | I |
| - | |
| Then wonder wise I rubbed my eyes and I woke from a horrid dream | K |
| The moon rode high in the naked sky and something bobbed in the stream | K |
| It held my sight in a patch of light and then it sheered from the shore | U |
| It dipped and sank by a hollow bank and I never saw it more | U |
| - | |
| This was the tale he told to me that man so warped and gray | Q |
| Ere he slept and dreamed and the camp fire gleamed in his eye in a wolfish way | Q |
| That crystal eye that raked the sky in the weird Auroral ray | Q |
Robert William Service
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Ballad Of One-eyed Mike poem by Robert William Service
Best Poems of Robert William Service