A Black Job Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB BABA BCBBCCDCDCD EFEFGGFHHFIJKLLLK FFBMMBBBBBNBNBBBFFOO BBBO BABBBAABPPPBCPCPQQAF FA PPPBBPPPBRRB BPBPBBSSFBBF TUTUVVPPPP AFAFBBBBBBUUUUDDBBBB WWXX AAFBBF AAAAFQQF YYAAABABBAAB BVVBFFFFAAFF BAABBBBB AABQQBBZZBAPAAP FAFAPFFPBBAPPAP QQA2A2APPAB2B2B2A AAAAAAOAAONo doubt the pleasure is as great | A |
Of being cheated as to cheat HUDIBRAS | B |
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The history of human kind to trace | B |
Since Eve the first of dupes our doom unriddled | A |
A certain portion of the human race | B |
Has certainly a taste for being diddled | A |
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Witness the famous Mississippi dreams | B |
A rage that time seems only to redouble | C |
The Banks Joint Stocks and all the flimsy schemes | B |
For rolling in Pactolian streams | B |
That cost our modern rogues so little trouble | C |
No matter what to pasture cows on stubble | C |
To twist sea sand into a solid rope | D |
To make French bricks and fancy bread of rubble | C |
Or light with gas the whole celestial cope | D |
Only propose to blow a bubble | C |
And Lord what hundreds will subscribe for soap | D |
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Soap it reminds me of a little tale | E |
Tho' not a pig's the hawbuck's glory | F |
When rustic games and merriment prevail | E |
But here's my story | F |
Once on a time no matter when | G |
A knot of very charitable men | G |
Set up a Philanthropical Society | F |
Professing on a certain plan | H |
To benefit the race of man | H |
And in particular that dark variety | F |
Which some suppose inferior as in vermin | I |
The sable is to ermine | J |
As smut to flour as coal to alabaster | K |
As crows to swans as soot to driven snow | L |
As blacking or as ink to milk below | L |
Or yet a better simile to show | L |
As ragman's dolls to images in plaster | K |
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However as is usual in our city | F |
They had a sort of managing Committee | F |
A board of grave responsible Directors | B |
A Secretary good at pen and ink | M |
A Treasurer of course to keep the chink | M |
And quite an army of Collectors | B |
Not merely male but female duns | B |
Young old and middle aged of all degrees | B |
With many of those persevering ones | B |
Who mite by mite would beg a cheese | B |
And what might be their aim | N |
To rescue Afric's sable sons from fetters | B |
To save their bodies from the burning shame | N |
Of branding with hot letters | B |
Their shoulders from the cowhide's bloody strokes | B |
Their necks from iron yokes | B |
To end or mitigate the ills of slavery | F |
The Planter's avarice the Driver's knavery | F |
To school the heathen Negroes and enlighten 'em | O |
To polish up and brighten 'em | O |
And make them worthy of eternal bliss | B |
Why no the simple end and aim was this | B |
Reading a well known proverb much amiss | B |
To wash and whiten 'em | O |
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They look'd so ugly in their sable hides | B |
So dark so dingy like a grubby lot | A |
Of sooty sweeps or colliers and besides | B |
However the poor elves | B |
Might wash themselves | B |
Nobody knew if they were clean or not | A |
On Nature's fairness they were quite a blot | A |
Not to forget more serious complaints | B |
That even while they join'd in pious hymn | P |
So black they were and grim | P |
In face and limb | P |
They look'd like Devils tho' they sang like Saints | B |
The thing was undeniable | C |
They wanted washing not that slight ablution | P |
To which the skin of the White Man is liable | C |
Merely removing transient pollution | P |
But good hard honest energetic rubbing | Q |
And scrubbing | Q |
Sousing each sooty frame from heels to head | A |
With stiff strong saponaceous lather | F |
And pails of water hottish rather | F |
But not so boiling as to turn 'em red | A |
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So spoke the philanthropic man | P |
Who laid and hatch'd and nursed the plan | P |
And oh to view its glorious consummation | P |
The brooms and mops | B |
The tubs and slops | B |
The baths and brushes in full operation | P |
To see each Crow or Jim or John | P |
Go in a raven and come out a swan | P |
While fair as Cavendishes Vanes and Russels | B |
Black Venus rises from the soapy surge | R |
And all the little Niggerlings emerge | R |
As lily white as mussels | B |
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Sweet was the vision but alas | B |
However in prospectus bright and sunny | P |
To bring such visionary scenes to pass | B |
One thing was requisite and that was money | P |
Money that pays the laundress and her bills | B |
For socks and collars shirts and frills | B |
Cravats and kerchiefs money without which | S |
The negroes must remain as dark as pitch | S |
A thing to make all Christians sad and shivery | F |
To think of millions of immortal souls | B |
Dwelling in bodies black as coals | B |
And living so to speak in Satan's livery | F |
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Money the root of evil dross and stuff | T |
But oh how happy ought the rich to feel | U |
Whose means enable them to give enough | T |
To blanch an African from head to heel | U |
How blessed yea thrice blessed to subscribe | V |
Enough to scour a tribe | V |
While he whose fortune was at best a brittle one | P |
Although he gave but pence how sweet to know | P |
He helped to bleach a Hottentot's great toe | P |
Or little one | P |
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Moved by this logic or appall'd | A |
To persons of a certain turn so proper | F |
The money came when call'd | A |
In silver gold and copper | F |
Presents from Friends to blacks or foes to whites | B |
Trifles and offerings and widows' mites | B |
Plump legacies and yearly benefactions | B |
With other gifts | B |
And charitable lifts | B |
Printed in lists and quarterly transactions | B |
As thus Elisha Brettel | U |
An iron kettle | U |
The Dowager Lady Scannel | U |
A piece of flannel | U |
Rebecca Pope | D |
A bar of soap | D |
The Misses Howels | B |
Half a dozen towels | B |
The Master Rush's | B |
Two scrubbing brushes | B |
Mr T Groom | W |
A stable broom | W |
And Mrs Grubb | X |
A tub | X |
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Great were the sums collected | A |
And great results in consequence expected | A |
But somehow in the teeth of all endeavor | F |
According to reports | B |
At yearly courts | B |
The blacks confound them were as black as ever | F |
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Yes spite of all the water sous'd aloft | A |
Soap plain and mottled hard and soft | A |
Soda and pearlash huckaback and sand | A |
Brooms brushes palm of hand | A |
And scourers in the office strong and clever | F |
In spite of all the tubbing rubbing scrubbing | Q |
The routing and the grubbing | Q |
The blacks confound them were as black as ever | F |
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In fact in his perennial speech | Y |
The Chairman own'd the niggers did not bleach | Y |
As he had hoped | A |
From being washed and soaped | A |
A circumstance he named with grief and pity | A |
But still he had the happiness to say | B |
For self and the Committee | A |
By persevering in the present way | B |
And scrubbing at the Blacks from day to day | B |
Although he could not promise perfect white | A |
From certain symptoms that had come to light | A |
He hoped in time to get them gray | B |
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Lull'd by this vague assurance | B |
The friends and patrons of the sable tribe | V |
Continued to subscribe | V |
And waited waited on with much endurance | B |
Many a frugal sister thrifty daughter | F |
Many a stinted widow pinching mother | F |
With income by the tax made somewhat shorter | F |
Still paid implicitly her crown per quarter | F |
Only to hear as ev'ry year came round | A |
That Mr Treasurer had spent her pound | A |
And as she loved her sable brother | F |
That Mr Treasurer must have another | F |
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But spite of pounds or guineas | B |
Instead of giving any hint | A |
Of turning to a neutral tint | A |
The plaguy Negroes and their piccaninnies | B |
Were still the color of the bird that caws | B |
Only some very aged souls | B |
Showing a little gray upon their polls | B |
Like daws | B |
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However nothing clashed | A |
By such repeated failures or abashed | A |
The Court still met the Chairman and Directors | B |
The Secretary good at pen and ink | Q |
The worthy Treasurer who kept the chink | Q |
And all the cash Collectors | B |
With hundreds of that class so kindly credulous | B |
Without whose help no charlatan alive | Z |
Or Bubble Company could hope to thrive | Z |
Or busy Chevalier however sedulous | B |
Those good and easy innocents in fact | A |
Who willingly receiving chaff for corn | P |
As pointed out by Butler's tact | A |
Still find a secret pleasure in the act | A |
Of being pluck'd and shorn | P |
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However in long hundreds there they were | F |
Thronging the hot and close and dusty court | A |
To hear once more addresses from the Chair | F |
And regular Report | A |
Alas concluding in the usual strain | P |
That what with everlasting wear and tear | F |
The scrubbing brushes hadn't got a hair | F |
The brooms mere stumps would never serve again | P |
The soap was gone the flannels all in shreds | B |
The towels worn to threads | B |
The tubs and pails too shattered to be mended | A |
And what was added with a deal of pain | P |
But as accounts correctly would explain | P |
Tho' thirty thousand pounds had been expended | A |
The Blackamoors had still been wash'd in vain | P |
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In fact the Negroes were as black as ink | Q |
Yet still as the Committee dared to think | Q |
And hoped the proposition was not rash | A2 |
A rather free expenditure of cash | A2 |
But ere the prospect could be made more sunny | A |
Up jump'd a little lemon colored man | P |
And with an eager stammer thus began | P |
In angry earnest though it sounded funny | A |
What More subscriptions No no no not I | B2 |
You have had time time time enough to try | B2 |
They WON'T come white then why why why why | B2 |
More money | A |
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Why said the Chairman with an accent bland | A |
And gentle waving of his dexter hand | A |
Why must we have more dross and dirt and dust | A |
More filthy lucre in a word more gold | A |
The why sir very easily is told | A |
Because Humanity declares we must | A |
We've scrubb'd the negroes till we've nearly killed 'em | O |
And finding that we cannot wash them white | A |
But still their nigritude offends the sight | A |
We mean to gild 'em | O |
Thomas Hood
(1)
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