The Dutch In The Medway Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDEFE GHIHDEJE KCLCGGMG GNCNGGGG GGCGGGCG| If wars were won by feasting | A |
| Or victory by song | B |
| Or safety found in sleeping sound | C |
| How England would be strong | B |
| But honour and dominion | D |
| Are not maintain d so | E |
| They're only got by sword and shot | F |
| And this the Dutchmen know | E |
| - | |
| The moneys that should feed us | G |
| You spend on your delight | H |
| How can you then have sailor men | I |
| To aid you in your fight | H |
| Our fish and cheese are rotten | D |
| Which makes the scurvy grow | E |
| We cannot serve you if we starve | J |
| And this the Dutchmen know | E |
| - | |
| Our ships in every harbour | K |
| Be neither whole nor sound | C |
| And when we seek to mend a leak | L |
| No oakum can be found | C |
| Or if it is the caulkers | G |
| And carpenters also | G |
| For lack of pay have gone away | M |
| And this the Dutchmen know | G |
| - | |
| Mere powder guns and bullets | G |
| We scarce can get at all | N |
| Their price was spent in merriment | C |
| And revel at Whitehall | N |
| While we in tattered doublets | G |
| From ship to ship must row | G |
| Beseeching friends for odds and ends | G |
| And this the Dutchmen know | G |
| - | |
| No King will heed our warnings | G |
| No Court will pay our claims | G |
| Our King and Court for their disport | C |
| Do sell the very Thames | G |
| For now De Ruyter's topsails | G |
| Off naked Chatham show | G |
| We dare not meet him with our fleet | C |
| And this the Dutchmen know | G |
Rudyard Kipling
(1)
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