William Schwenck Gilbert

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Only A Dancing Girl Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABABBCC DEDEEFF GHGHHII FGFGGGG GEGEEJJ HKHKKLL

Only a dancing girlA
With an unromantic styleB
With borrowed colour and curlA
With fixed mechanical smileB
With many a hackneyed wileB
With ungrammatical lipsC
And corns that mar her tripsC
-
Hung from the flies in airD
She acts a palpable lieE
She's as little a fairy thereD
As unpoetical IE
I hear you asking WhyE
Why in the world I singF
This tawdry tinselled thingF
-
No airy fairy sheG
As she hangs in arsenic greenH
From a highly impossible treeG
In a highly impossible sceneH
Herself not over cleanH
For fays don't suffer I'm toldI
From bunions coughs or coldI
-
And stately dames that bringF
Their daughters there to seeG
Pronounce the dancing thingF
No better than she should beG
With her skirt at her shameful kneeG
And her painted tainted phizG
Ah matron which of us isG
-
And in sooth it oft occursG
That while these matrons sighE
Their dresses are lower than hersG
And sometimes half as highE
And their hair is hair they buyE
And they use their glasses tooJ
In a way she'd blush to doJ
-
But change her gold and greenH
For a coarse merino gownK
And see her upon the sceneH
Of her home when coaxing downK
Her drunken father's frownK
In his squalid cheerless denL
She's a fairy truly thenL

William Schwenck Gilbert



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