That Swamp Of Death Poem Rhyme Scheme

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William Mckendree Carleton

That Swamp Of Death Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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Yes it's straight and true good Preacher every word that you have said	A
Do not think these tears unmanly they're the first ones I have shed	A
But they kind o' beat and pounded 'gainst my aching heart and brain	B
And they would not be let go of and they gave me extra pain	B
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I am just a laboring man sir work for food and rags and sleep	C
And I hardly know the meaning of the life I slave to keep	C
But I know when times are cheery or my heart is made of lead	A
I know sorrow when I see it and I know my girl is dead	A
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No she isn't much to look at just a plainish bit of clay	D
Of the sort of perished children that die 'round here every day	D
And how she could break a heart up you'd be slow to understand	E
But she held mine Mr Preacher in that little withered hand	E
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There are lots of prettier children with a face and form more fine	F
Let their parents love and pet them but this little one was mine	F
There was no one else to cling to when we two were torn apart	G
And it's death this amputation of the strong arms of the heart	G
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I am just an ignorant man sir of the kind that digs and delves	H
But I've learned that human beings cannot stay in by themselves	H
They will reach out after something be it good or be it bad	I
And my heart on hers had settled and the girl was all I had	I
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Yes it's solid Mr Preacher every word that you have said	A
God loves children while they're living and adopts them when they're dead	A
But I cannot help contriving do the very best I can	J
That it wasn't God's mercy took her but the selfishness of man	J
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Why she lay here faint and gasping moaning for a bit of air	K
Choked and strangled by the foul breath of the chimneys over there	K
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It climbed through every window and crept under every door	L
And I tried to bar against it and she only choked the more	L
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She would lie there with the old look that poor children somehow get	M
She had learned to use her patience and she did not cry or fret	M
But would lift her little face up so piteous and so fair	K
And would whisper I am dying for a little breath of air	K
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If she'd gone off through the sunlight 'twouldn't have seemed so hard to me	N
Or among the fresh cool breezes that come sweeping from the sea	N
But it's nothing less than murder when my darling's every breath	O
Chokes and strangles with the poison from that chimney swamp of death	O
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Oh it's not enough those people own the very ground we tread	A
And the shelter that we crouch in and the tools that earn our bread	A
They must place their blotted mortgage on the air and on the sky	P
And shut out our little heaven till our children pine and die	P
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Oh the air is pure and wholesome where some babies coo and rest	Q
And they trim them out with ribbons and they feed them with the best	Q
But the love they bear is mockery to the gracious God on high	P
If to give those children luxuries some one else's child must die	P
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Oh we wear the cheapest clothing and our meals are scant and brief	R
And perhaps those fellows fancy there's a cheaper grade of grief	R
But the people all around here losing children friends and mates	S
Can inform them that Affliction hasn't any under rates	S
	-
I'm no grumbler at the rulers of this free and happy land	E
And I don't go 'round explaining things I do not understand	E
But I know there's something treacherous in the working of the law	T
When we get a dose of poison out of every breath we draw	T
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I have talked too much good Preacher and I hope you won't be vexed	U
But I'm going to make a sermon with that white face for a text	U
And I'll preach it and I'll preach it till I set the people wild	V
O'er the heartless reckless grasping of the men who killed my child	V
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From Arthur Selwyn's Note book	W
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Still do I write day time and night	X
That which I see in my leisurely flight	X
What is this sign that is claiming the sight	X
Lodgings within here at five cents per night	X
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Let me examine this cheap entered nest	Q
Pay my five cents and go in with the rest	Q
Let me jot down with sly pen but sincere	Y
What in this garret I see smell and hear	Z
Great gloomy den where on close clustered shelves	H
Shelterless wretches can shelter themselves	H
Pestilence drugged is the murderous air	K
Full of the breathings of want and despair	K
Horrible place where The Crushed Race	A2
Winces 'neath Poverty's dolefullest blight	X
Bivouac of suffering sin and disgrace	A2
What can you look for at five cents per night	X
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Hustle them in jostle them in	B2
Many of nation and divers of kin	B2
Sallow and yellow and tawny of skin	B2
Hustle them bustle them jostle them in	B2
Handfuls of withered but suffering clay	D
Swept from the East by oppression away	D
Baffled adventurers conquered and pressed	Q
Back from the gates of the glittering West	Q
Men who with indolence folly and guile	C2
Carelessly slighted Prosperity's smile	C2
Men who have struggled 'gainst Destiny's frown	D2
Inch after inch till she hunted them down	D2
Scores in a tier pile them up here	Z
Many of peoples and divers of kin	B2
Drift of the nations from far and from near	Y
Hustle them bustle them jostle them in	B2
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Islands of green mistily seen	E2
Hover in visions these sleepers between	E2
Beautiful memories cozy and clean	E2
Restfully precious and sweetly serene	E2
Womanly kisses have softened the brow	F2
Lying in drunken bewilderment now	F2
Infantile faces have cuddled for rest	Q
Here on this savage and rag covered breast	Q
Lucky the wretch who in Poverty's ways	G2
Bears not the burden of happier days	G2
Many a midnight is gloomier yet	M
By the remembrance of stars that have set	M
Echoes of pain drearily plain	B
Come of old melodies sweet and serene	E2
Images sad to the heart and the brain	B
Rise out of memories cozy and green	E2
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Hustle them in bustle them in	B2
Fetid with squalor and reeking with gin	B2
Loaded with misery folly and sin	B2
Hustle them bustle them jostle them in	B2
Few are the sorrows so hopelessly drear	F2
But they have sad representatives here	F2
Never a crime so complete and confessed	Q
But has come hither for one night of rest	Q
Seeds that the thorns of diseases may bear	F2
Float on the putrid and smoke laden air	F2
Ghosts of destruction are haunting each breath	O
Soft stepping agents commissioned by Death	O
Crowd them in rows comrades or foes	H2
Deadened with liquor and deafened with din	B2
Fugitives out of the frosts and the snows	H2
Hustle them bustle them jostle them in	B2
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Guilt has not pressed unto its breast	Q
All who are taking this dingy unrest	Q
Innocence often is Misery's guest	Q
Sorrow may strike at the brightest and best	Q
You from whom hope but not feeling has fled	A
This is your refuge from pauperhood's bed	A
Timorous lad with a sensitive face	A2
You have no record of crime and disgrace	A2
Weary old man with the snow drifted hair	F2
Not by your fault are you suffering there	F2
Never a child of your cherishing nigh	P
'Tis not for sin you so drearily die	P
Pain in all lands smites with two hands	I2
Guilty and good may encounter the test	Q
Misery's cord is of different strands	I2
Sorrow may strike at the brightest and best	Q
	-
Sympathy's tear warm and sincere	F2
Cannot but glisten while lingering near	F2
Edge not away sir in horror of fear	F2
These are your brothers this family here	F2
What if Misfortune had made you forlorn	J2
With her stiletto as well as her scorn	J2
What if some fiend had been making you sure	F2
With more temptation than flesh could endure	F2
What if you deep in the slums had been born	J2
Cradled in villany christened in scorn	J2
What if your toys had been tainted with crime	K2
What if your baby hands dabbled in slime	K2
Judge them with ruth Maybe in truth	L2
It is not they but their luck that is here	F2
Fancy your growth from a sin nurtured youth	L2
Pity their weakness and give them a tear	F2
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Help them get out help them keep out	M2
Labor to teach them what life is about	M2
Give them a hand unencumbered with doubt	M2
Feed them and clothe them but pilot them out	M2
Mortals depraved whatsoe'er they have been	B2
Soonest can mend from assistance within	B2
Warm them and feed them they're beasts even then	N2
Teach them and love them they grow into men	N2
You who 'mid luxuries costly and grand	E
Decorate homes with munificent hand	E
Use in some measure your exquisite arts	O2
For the improvement of minds and of hearts	O2
Lilies must grow up from below	P2
Where the strong rootlets are twining about	M2
Goodness and honesty ever must flow	P2
From the heart centres to blossom without	M2
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From Farmer Harrington's Calendar	F2
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FEBRUARY	F2
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Wind in the west no symptoms of a thaw	T
The coldest bleakest day I ever saw	T
And I'm housed up with nothing much to do	Q2
Except to read the papers through and through	Q2
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Died of starvation what does this all mean	E2
Stores of provisions everywhere are seen	E2
Died of starvation here's the place and name	R2
Right in the paper let us blush for shame	R2
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This city wastes what any one would call	S2
Nine hundred times enough to feed us all	S2
And yet folks die in garret hut and street	T2
Simply because there isn't enough to eat	T2
	-
Oh heavens there runs a great big Norway rat	U2
Sleek as a banker and almost as fat	U2
He daily breakfasts dines and sups and thrives	V2
On what would save a pair of human lives	W2
He rears a family with his own fat features	X2
On food we lock up from our fellow creatures	X2
And human beings fall down by the way	D
And die for want of food this very day	D
	-
Frozen to death the worse than useless moth	Y2
May feed this year on bales and bales of cloth	Y2
Untouched ten million tons of coal can lie	P
While God's own human beings freeze and die	P
	-
Died of starvation waves of golden wheat	T2
All summer dashed and glistened at our feet	T2
Dull senseless grain is stored in buildings high	P
And God's own human beings starve and die	P
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I would not rob from rich men what they earn	Z2
But I would have them sweet compassion learn	Z2
Oh do not Pity's gentle voice defy	P
While God's own human beings starve and die	P
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MARCH	A3
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Died of starvation yes it has been done	B3
To day I've seen a hunger murdered one	B3
Who had a perfect right it seemed to me	F2
The mistress of a happy home to be	F2
And yet we found her on a ragged bed	A
One white arm underneath a shapely head	A
Her long bright hair was lying fold on fold	C3
Like finest threads spun from a bar of gold	C3
Her face was chiselled after beauty's style	C2
And want had not hewn out its witching smile	C2
'Twas like white marble half endowed with breath	O
The face of this sweet maiden starved to death	O
	-
Not far from where she lay so sadly lone	D3
Her calendar or diary was thrown	D3
They let me have it when the law had read	A
This plaintive girlish message from the dead	A
It doesn't look well among these notes to stay	D
Of one who feeds on blessings every day	D
But I will put it in here for my heart	G
To look at when I feel too proud and smart	G