A Black Job Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Thomas Hood

A Black Job Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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No doubt the pleasure is as great	A
Of being cheated as to cheat HUDIBRAS	B
	-
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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
	-
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