The Colonel's Soliloquy Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBC DEFE GHGH IJIJ KJKJ LM M NONO KIKI AFAF| Southampton Docks October | A |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| The quay recedes Hurrah Ahead we go | B |
| It's true I've been accustomed now to home | C |
| And joints get rusty and one's limbs may grow | B |
| More fit to rest than roam | C |
| - | |
| But I can stand as yet fair stress and strain | D |
| There's not a little steel beneath the rust | E |
| My years mount somewhat but here's to't again | F |
| And if I fall I must | E |
| - | |
| God knows that for myself I've scanty care | G |
| Past scrimmages have proved as much to all | H |
| In Eastern lands and South I've had my share | G |
| Both of the blade and ball | H |
| - | |
| And where those villains ripped me in the flitch | I |
| With their old iron in my early time | J |
| I'm apt at change of wind to feel a twitch | I |
| Or at a change of clime | J |
| - | |
| And what my mirror shows me in the morning | K |
| Has more of blotch and wrinkle than of bloom | J |
| My eyes too heretofore all glasses scorning | K |
| Have just a touch of rheum | J |
| - | |
| Now sounds 'The Girl I've left behind me ' Ah | L |
| The years the ardours wakened by that tune | M |
| Time was when with the crowd's farewell 'Hurrah ' | - |
| 'Twould lift me to the moon | M |
| - | |
| But now it's late to leave behind me one | N |
| Who if poor soul her man goes underground | O |
| Will not recover as she might have done | N |
| In days when hopes abound | O |
| - | |
| She's waving from the wharfside palely grieving | K |
| As down we draw Her tears make little show | I |
| Yet now she suffers more than at my leaving | K |
| Some twenty years ago | I |
| - | |
| I pray those left at home will care for her | A |
| I shall come back I have before though when | F |
| The Girl you leave behind you is a grandmother | A |
| Things may not be as then | F |
Thomas Hardy
(1)
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