A Fairy Tale Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCACBDDEFEGGEE HIHIJKKJEKEE LMGNMOOJPPJQQJJJJJPR RP EESSTSTTMOOEE MUTUTUVVEWXEYZZA2B2B 2C2A2C2PPA2 TTD2D2EA2A2EJEJ EEEEC2TC2TC2C2E2E2 F2OF2F2OTOHJTOG2H2JH 2J| On Hounslow Heath and close beside the road | A |
| As western travellers may oft have seen | B |
| A little house some years ago there stood | C |
| A minikin abode | A |
| And built like Mr Birkbeck's all of wood | C |
| The walls of white the window shutters green | B |
| Four wheels it had at North South East and West | D |
| Though now at rest | D |
| On which it used to wander to and fro | E |
| Because its master ne'er maintained a rider | F |
| Like those who trade in Paternoster Row | E |
| But made his business travel for itself | G |
| Till he had made his pelf | G |
| And then retired if one may call it so | E |
| Of a roadsider | E |
| - | |
| Perchance the very race and constant riot | H |
| Of stages long and short which thereby ran | I |
| Made him more relish the repose and quiet | H |
| Of his now sedentary caravan | I |
| Perchance he loved the ground because 'twas common | J |
| And so he might impale a strip of soil | K |
| That furnished by his toil | K |
| Some dusty greens for him and his old woman | J |
| And five tall hollyhocks in dingy flower | E |
| Howbeit the thoroughfare did no ways spoil | K |
| His peace unless in some unlucky hour | E |
| A stray horse came and gobbled up his bow'r | E |
| - | |
| But tired of always looking at the coaches | L |
| The same to come when they had seen them one day | M |
| And used to brisker life both man and wife | G |
| Began to suffer N U E's approaches | N |
| And feel retirement like a long wet Sunday | M |
| So having had some quarters of school breeding | O |
| They turned themselves like other folks to reading | O |
| But setting out where others nigh have done | J |
| And being ripened in the seventh stage | P |
| The childhood of old age | P |
| Began as other children have begun | J |
| Not with the pastorals of Mr Pope | Q |
| Or Bard of Hope | Q |
| Or Paley ethical or learned Porson | J |
| But spelt on Sabbaths in St Mark or John | J |
| And then relax'd themselves with Whittington | J |
| Or Valentine and Orson | J |
| But chiefly fairy tales they loved to con | J |
| And being easily melted in their dotage | P |
| Slobber'd and kept | R |
| Reading and wept | R |
| Over the White Cat in their wooden cottage | P |
| - | |
| Thus reading on the longer | E |
| They read of course their childish faith grew stronger | E |
| In Gnomes and Hags and Elves and Giants grim | S |
| If talking Trees and Birds revealed to him | S |
| She saw the flight of Fairyland's fly wagons | T |
| And magic fishes swim | S |
| In puddle ponds and took old crows for dragons | T |
| Both were quite drunk from the enchanted flagons | T |
| When as it fell upon a summer's day | M |
| As the old man sat a feeding | O |
| On the old babe reading | O |
| Beside his open street and parlor door | E |
| A hideous roar | E |
| - | |
| Proclaimed a drove of beasts was coming by the way | M |
| Long horned and short of many a different breed | U |
| Tall tawny brutes from famous Lincoln levels | T |
| Or Durham feed | U |
| With some of those unquiet black dwarf devils | T |
| From nether side of Tweed | U |
| Or Firth of Forth | V |
| Looking half wild with joy to leave the North | V |
| With dusty hides all mobbing on together | E |
| When whether from a fly's malicious comment | W |
| Upon his tender flank from which he shrank | X |
| Or whether | E |
| Only in some enthusiastic moment | Y |
| However one brown monster in a frisk | Z |
| Giving his tail a perpendicular whisk | Z |
| Kicked out a passage through the beastly rabble | A2 |
| And after a pas seul or if you will a | B2 |
| Horn pipe before the basket maker's villa | B2 |
| Leapt o'er the tiny pale | C2 |
| Backed his beefsteaks against the wooden gable | A2 |
| And thrust his brawny bell rope of a tail | C2 |
| Right o'er the page | P |
| Wherein the sage | P |
| Just then was spelling some romantic fable | A2 |
| - | |
| The old man half a scholar half a dunce | T |
| Could not peruse who could two tales at once | T |
| And being huffed | D2 |
| At what he knew was none of Riquet's Tuft | D2 |
| Banged to the door | E |
| But most unluckily enclosed a morsel | A2 |
| Of the intruding tail and all the tassel | A2 |
| The monster gave a roar | E |
| And bolting off with speed increased by pain | J |
| The little house became a coach once more | E |
| And like Macheath took to the road again | J |
| - | |
| Just then by fortune's whimsical decree | E |
| The ancient woman stooping with her crupper | E |
| Towards sweet home or where sweet home should be | E |
| Was getting up some household herbs for supper | E |
| Thoughtful of Cinderella in the tale | C2 |
| And quaintly wondering if magic shifts | T |
| Could o'er a common pumpkin so prevail | C2 |
| To turn it to a coach what pretty gifts | T |
| Might come of cabbages and curly kale | C2 |
| Meanwhile she never heard her old man's wail | C2 |
| Nor turned till home had turned a corner quite | E2 |
| Gone out of sight | E2 |
| - | |
| At last conceive her rising from the ground | F2 |
| Weary of sitting on her russet clothing | O |
| And looking round | F2 |
| Where rest was to be found | F2 |
| There was no house no villa there no nothing | O |
| No house | T |
| The change was quite amazing | O |
| It made her senses stagger for a minute | H |
| The riddle's explication seemed to harden | J |
| But soon her superannuated nous | T |
| Explain'd the horrid mystery and raising | O |
| Her hand to heaven with the cabbage in it | G2 |
| On which she meant to sup | H2 |
| Well this is Fairy work I'll bet a farden | J |
| Little Prince Silverwings has ketch'd me up | H2 |
| And set me down in some one else's garden | J |
Thomas Hood
(1)
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About A Fairy Tale
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