The Bumboat Woman's Story Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDD EEFF G BB HHHF IIHH JHHK FFJJ BBLL HHHH MMLL BBNN HHLL OOHH HHBB HKPP BHFF HHHK CCIQI'm old my dears and shrivelled with age and work and grief | A |
My eyes are gone and my teeth have been drawn by Time the Thief | A |
For terrible sights I've seen and dangers great I've run | B |
I'm nearly seventy now and my work is almost done | B |
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Ah I've been young in my time and I've played the deuce with men | C |
I'm speaking of ten years past I was barely sixty then | C |
My cheeks were mellow and soft and my eyes were large and sweet | D |
POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes were the standing toast of the Royal Fleet | D |
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A bumboat woman was I and I faithfully served the ships | E |
With apples and cakes and fowls and beer and halfpenny dips | E |
And beef for the generous mess where the officers dine at nights | F |
And fine fresh peppermint drops for the rollicking midshipmites | F |
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Of all the kind commanders who anchored in Portsmouth Bay | G |
By far the sweetest of all was kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE ' | - |
LIEUTENANT BELAYE commanded the gunboat HOT CROSS BUN | B |
She was seven and thirty feet in length and she carried a gun | B |
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With a laudable view of enhancing his country's naval pride | H |
When people inquired her size LIEUTENANT BELAYE replied | H |
quot Oh my ship my ship is the first of the Hundred and Seventy ones quot | H |
Which meant her tonnage but people imagined it meant her guns | F |
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Whenever I went on board he would beckon me down below | I |
quot Come down Little Buttercup come quot for he loved to call me so | I |
And he'd tell of the fights at sea in which he'd taken a part | H |
And so LIEUTENANT BELAYE won poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S heart | H |
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But at length his orders came and he said one day said he | J |
quot I'm ordered to sail with the HOT CROSS BUN to the German Sea quot | H |
And the Portsmouth maidens wept when they learnt the evil day | H |
For every Portsmouth maid loved good LIEUTENANT BELAYE | K |
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And I went to a back back street with plenty of cheap cheap shops | F |
And I bought an oilskin hat and a second hand suit of slops | F |
And I went to LIEUTENANT BELAYE and he never suspected ME | J |
And I entered myself as a chap as wanted to go to sea | J |
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We sailed that afternoon at the mystic hour of one | B |
Remarkably nice young men were the crew of the HOT CROSS BUN | B |
I'm sorry to say that I've heard that sailors sometimes swear | L |
But I never yet heard a BUN say anything wrong I declare | L |
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When Jack Tars meet they meet with a quot Messmate ho What cheer quot | H |
But here on the HOT CROSS BUN it was quot How do you do my dear quot | H |
When Jack Tars growl I believe they growl with a big big D | H |
But the strongest oath of the HOT CROSS BUNS was a mild quot Dear me quot | H |
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Yet though they were all well bred you could scarcely call them slick | M |
Whenever a sea was on they were all extremely sick | M |
And whenever the weather was calm and the wind was light and fair | L |
They spent more time than a sailor should on his back back hair | L |
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They certainly shivered and shook when ordered aloft to run | B |
And they screamed when LIEUTENANT BELAYE discharged his only gun | B |
And as he was proud of his gun such pride is hardly wrong | N |
The Lieutenant was blazing away at intervals all day long | N |
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They all agreed very well though at times you heard it said | H |
That BILL had a way of his own of making his lips look red | H |
That JOE looked quite his age or somebody might declare | L |
That BARNACLE'S long pig tail was never his own own hair | L |
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BELAYE would admit that his men were of no great use to him | O |
quot But then quot he would say quot there is little to do on a gunboat trim | O |
I can hand and reef and steer and fire my big gun too | H |
And it IS such a treat to sail with a gentle well bred crew quot | H |
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I saw him every day How the happy moments sped | H |
Reef topsails Make all taut There's dirty weather ahead | H |
I do not mean that tempests threatened the HOT CROSS BUN | B |
In THAT case I don't know whatever we SHOULD have done | B |
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After a fortnight's cruise we put into port one day | H |
And off on leave for a week went kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE | K |
And after a long long week had passed and it seemed like a life | P |
LIEUTENANT BELAYE returned to his ship with a fair young wife | P |
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He up and he says says he quot O crew of the HOT CROSS BUN | B |
Here is the wife of my heart for the Church has made us one quot | H |
And as he uttered the word the crew went out of their wits | F |
And all fell down in so many separate fainting fits | F |
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And then their hair came down or off as the case might be | H |
And lo the rest of the crew were simple girls like me | H |
Who all had fled from their homes in a sailor's blue array | H |
To follow the shifting fate of kind LIEUTENANT BELAYE | K |
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It's strange to think that I should ever have loved young men | C |
But I'm speaking of ten years past I was barely sixty then | C |
And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and age I trow | I |
And poor POLL PINEAPPLE'S eyes have lost their lustre now | Q |
William Schwenck Gilbert
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