A Report From Below! Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCDDDCEFEF GGHIIIHJJKLLLLMMMNOO ON PPQQQQRRMMSSTTUUVVHH WWMMXXYYMMLLMMLLQRLL LZZA2A2B2B2QQ| Blow high blow low SEA SONG | A |
| - | |
| - | |
| As Mister B and Mistress B | B |
| One night were sitting down to tea | B |
| With toast and muffins hot | C |
| They heard a loud and sudden bounce | D |
| That made the very china flounce | D |
| They could not for a time pronounce | D |
| If they were safe or shot | C |
| For Memory brought a deed to match | E |
| At Deptford done by night | F |
| Before one eye appeared a Patch | E |
| In t'other eye a Blight | F |
| - | |
| To be belabor'd at of life | G |
| Without some small attempt at strife | G |
| Our nature will not grovel | H |
| One impulse hadd both man and dame | I |
| He seized the tongs she did the same | I |
| Leaving the ruffian if he came | I |
| The poker and the shovel | H |
| Suppose the couple standing so | J |
| When rushing footsteps from below | J |
| Made pulses fast and fervent | K |
| And first burst in the frantic cat | L |
| All steaming like a brewer's rat | L |
| And then as white as my cravat | L |
| Poor Mary May the servant | L |
| Lord how the couple's teeth did chatter | M |
| Master and Mistress both flew at her | M |
| Speak Fire or Murder What's the matter | M |
| Till Mary getting breath | N |
| Upon her tale began to touch | O |
| With rapid tongue full trotting such | O |
| As if she thought she had too much | O |
| To tell before her death | N |
| - | |
| We was both Ma'am in the wash house Ma'am a standing at our tubs | P |
| And Mrs Round was seconding what little things I rubs | P |
| 'Mary ' says she to me 'I say' and there she stops for coughin | Q |
| 'That dratted copper flue has took to smokin very often | Q |
| But please the pigs ' for that's her way of swearing in a passion | Q |
| I'll blow it up and not be set a coughin in this fashion | Q |
| Well down she takes my master's horn I mean his horn for loading | R |
| And empties every grain alive for to set the flue exploding | R |
| Lawk Mrs Round says I and stares that quantum is unproper | M |
| I'm sartin sure it can't not take a pound to sky a copper | M |
| You'll powder both our heads off so I tells you with its puff | S |
| But she only dried her fingers and she takes a pinch of snuff | S |
| Well when the pinch is over 'Teach your Grandmother to suck | T |
| A powder horn ' says she Well says I I wish you luck | T |
| Them words sets up her back so with her hands upon her hips | U |
| 'Come ' says she quite in a huff 'come keep your tongue inside your lips | U |
| Afore ever you was born I was well used to things like these | V |
| I shall put it in the grate and let it burn up by degrees | V |
| So in it goes and Bounce O Lord it gives us such a rattle | H |
| I thought we both were cannonized like Sogers in a battle | H |
| Up goes the copper like a squib and us on both our backs | W |
| And bless the tubs they bundled off and split all into cracks | W |
| Well there I fainted dead away and might have been cut shorter | M |
| But Providence was kind and brought me to with scalding water | M |
| I first looks round for Mrs Round and sees her at a distance | X |
| As stiff as starch and looked as dead as any thing in existence | X |
| All scorched and grimed and more than that I sees the copper slap | Y |
| Right on her head for all the world like a percussion copper cap | Y |
| Well I crooks her little fingers and crumps them well up together | M |
| As humanity pints out and burnt her nostrums with a feather | M |
| But for all as I can do to restore her to her mortality | L |
| She never gives a sign of a return to sensuality | L |
| Thinks I well there she lies as dead as my own late departed mother | M |
| Well she'll wash no more in this world whatever she does in t'other | M |
| So I gives myself to scramble up the linens for a minute | L |
| Lawk sich a shirt thinks I it's well my master wasn't in it | L |
| Oh I never never never never never see a sight so shockin | Q |
| Here lays a leg and there a leg I mean you know a stocking | R |
| Bodies all slit and torn to rags and many a tattered skirt | L |
| And arms burnt off and sides and backs all scotched and black with dirt | L |
| But as nobody was in 'em none but nobody was hurt | L |
| Well there I am a scrambling up the things all in a lump | Z |
| When mercy on us such a groan as makes my heart to jump | Z |
| And there she is a lying with a crazy sort of eye | A2 |
| A staring at the wash house roof laid open to the sky | A2 |
| Then she beckons with a finger and so down to her I reaches | B2 |
| And puts my ear agin her mouth to hear her dying speeches | B2 |
| For poor soul she has a husband and young orphans as I knew | Q |
| Well Ma'am you won't believe it but it's Gospel fact and true | Q |
| But these words is all she whispered 'Why where is the powder blew ' | - |
Thomas Hood
(1)
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