The Last Lap Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCDEFEG HIHIAJAJHKHB LMNMCECEABAB| How do we know by the bank high river | A |
| Where the mired and sulky oxen wait | B |
| And it looks as though we might wait for ever | A |
| How do we know that the floods abate | B |
| There is no change in the current's brawling | C |
| Louder and harsher the freshet scolds | D |
| Yet we can feel she is falling falling | C |
| And the more she threatens the less she holds | D |
| Down to the drift with no word spoken | E |
| The wheel chained wagons slither and slue | F |
| Achtung The back of the worst is broken | E |
| And lash your leaders we're through we're through | G |
| - | |
| How do we know when the port fog holds us | H |
| Moored and helpless a mile from the pier | I |
| And the week long summer smother enfolds us | H |
| How do we know it is going to clear | I |
| There is no break in the blindfold weather | A |
| But one and another about the bay | J |
| The unseen capstans clink together | A |
| Getting ready to up and away | J |
| A pennon whimpers the breeze has found us | H |
| A headsail jumps through the thinning haze | K |
| The whole hull follows till broad around us | H |
| The clean swept ocean says quot Go your ways quot | B |
| - | |
| How do we know when the long fight rages | L |
| On the old stale front that we cannot shake | M |
| And it looks as though we were locked for ages | N |
| How do we know they are going to break | M |
| There is no lull in the level firing | C |
| Nothing has shifted except the sun | E |
| Yet we can feel they are tiring tiring | C |
| Yet we can tell they are ripe to run | E |
| Something wavers and while we wonder | A |
| Their centre trenches are emptying out | B |
| And before their useless flanks go under | A |
| Our guns have pounded retreat to rout | B |
Rudyard Kipling
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Last Lap poem by Rudyard Kipling
Best Poems of Rudyard Kipling