Tom Was Goin' For A Poet. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCDD EEFGG HHIJJ KKKLL MMCNN OPCQQ RRBSS TTCUU JJKVV MMBHH| The Farmer Discourses of his Son | A |
| - | |
| Tom was goin' for a poet an' said he'd a poet be | B |
| One of these long haired fellers a feller hates to see | B |
| One of these chaps forever fixin' things cute and clever | C |
| Makin' the world in gen'ral step 'long to tune an' time | D |
| An' cuttin' the earth into slices an' saltin' it down into rhyme | D |
| - | |
| Poets are good for somethin' so long as they stand at the head | E |
| But poetry's worth whatever it fetches in butter an' bread | E |
| An' many a time I've said it it don't do a fellow credit | F |
| To starve with a hole in his elbow an' be considered a fool | G |
| So after he's dead the young ones 'll speak his pieces in school | G |
| - | |
| An' Tom he had an opinion that Shakspeare an' all the rest | H |
| With all their winter clothin' couldn't make him a decent vest | H |
| But that didn't ease my labors or help him among the neighbors | I |
| Who watched him from a distance an' held his mind in doubt | J |
| An' wondered if Tom wasn't shaky or knew what he was about | J |
| - | |
| Tom he went a sowin' to sow a field of grain | K |
| But half of that 'ere sowin' was altogether in vain | K |
| For he was al'ays a stoppin' and gems of poetry droppin' | K |
| And metaphors they be pleasant but much too thin to eat | L |
| And germs of thought be handy but never grow up to wheat | L |
| - | |
| Tom he went a mowin' one broilin' summer's day | M |
| An' spoke quite sweet concernin' the smell of the new mowed hay | M |
| But all o' his useless chatter didn't go to help the matter | C |
| Or make the grief less searchin' or the pain less hard to feel | N |
| When he made a clip too suddent an' sliced his brother's heel | N |
| - | |
| Tom he went a drivin' the hills an' dales across | O |
| But scannin' the lines of his poetry he dropped the lines of his hoss | P |
| The nag ran fleet and fleeter in quite irregular metre | C |
| An' when we got Tom's leg set an' had fixed him so he could speak | Q |
| He muttered that that adventur' would keep him a writin' a week | Q |
| - | |
| Tom he went a ploughin' and couldn't have done it worse | R |
| He sat down on the handles an' went to spinnin' verse | R |
| He wrote it nice and pretty an agricultural ditty | B |
| But all o' his pesky measures didn't measure an acre more | S |
| Nor his p'ints didn't turn a furrow that wasn't turned before | S |
| - | |
| Tom he went a courtin' she liked him I suppose | T |
| But certain parts of courtin' a feller must do in prose | T |
| He rhymed her each day a letter but that didn't serve to get her | C |
| He waited so long she married another man from spite | U |
| An' sent him word she'd done it an' not to forget to write | U |
| - | |
| Tom at last got married his wife was smart and stout | J |
| An' she shoved up the window and slung his poetry out | J |
| An' at each new poem's creation she gave it circulation | K |
| An' fast as he would write 'em she seen to their puttin' forth | V |
| An' sent 'em east an westward an' also south an' north | V |
| - | |
| Till Tom he struck the opinion that poetry didn't pay | M |
| An' turned the guns of his genius an' fired 'em another way | M |
| He settled himself down steady an' is quite well off already | B |
| An' all of his life is verses with his wife the first an' best | H |
| An' ten or a dozen childr'n to constitute the rest | H |
Will Carleton
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