The Dunciad: Book I. Poem Rhyme Scheme

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The Mighty Mother and her son who brings	A
The Smithfield muses to the ear of kings	A
I sing Say you her instruments the great	B
Called to this work by Dulness Jove and Fate	B
You by whose care in vain decried and cursed	C
Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first	C
Say how the Goddess bade Britannia sleep	D
And poured her spirit o er the land and deep	D
In eldest time e er mortals writ or read	E
E er Pallas issued from the Thunderer s head	E
Dulness o er all possessed her ancient right	F
Daughter of Chaos and eternal Night	F
Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave	G
Gross as her sire and as her mother grave	G
Laborious heavy busy bold and blind	H
She ruled in native anarchy the mind	H
Still her old empire to restore she tries	I
For born a goddess Dulness never dies	I
O thou whatever title please thine ear	J
Dean Drapier Bickerstaff or Gulliver	K
Whether thou choose Cervantes serious air	L
Or laugh and shake in Rabelais easy chair	L
Or praise the court or magnify mankind	H
Or thy grieved country s copper chains unbind	H
From thy Boeotia though her power retires	M
Mourn not my SWIFT at ought our realm acquires	N
Here pleased behold her mighty wings out spread	H
To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead	H
Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne	O
And laughs to think Monroe would take her down	P
Where o er the gates by his famed by father s hand	H
Great Cibber s brazen brainless brothers stand	H
One cell there is concealed from vulgar eye	Q
The cave of poverty and poetry	R
Keen hollow winds howl through the bleak recess	S
Emblem of music caused by emptiness	T
Hence bards like Proteus long in vain tied down	P
Escape in monsters and amaze the town	P
Hence miscellanies spring the weekly boast	H
Of Curll s chaste press and Lintot s rubric post	H
Hence hymning Tyburn s elegiac lines	U
Hence Journals Medleys Merc ries Magazines	V
Sepulchral lies our holy walls to grace	W
And new Year odes and all the Grub Street race	W
In clouded majesty here Dulness shone	O
Four guardian virtues round support her throne	O
Fierce champion Fortitude that knows no fears	X
Of hisses blows or want or loss of ears	X
Calm Temperance whose blessings those partake	Y
Who hunger and who thirst for scribbling sake	Y
Prudence whose glass presents th approaching goal	Z
Poetic justice with her lifted scale	A2
Where in nice balance truth with gold she weighs	B2
And solid pudding against empty praise	B2
Here she beholds the chaos dark and deep	D
Where nameless somethings in their causes sleep	D
Till genial Jacob or a warm third day	H
Call forth each mass a poem or a play	H
How hints like spawn scarce quick in embryo lie	Q
How new born nonsense first is taught to cry	Q
Maggots half formed in rhyme exactly meet	H
And learn to crawl upon poetic feet	H
Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes	C2
And ductile dullness new meanders takes	C2
There motley images her fancy strike	D2
Figures ill paired and similes unlike	D2
She sees a mob of metaphors advance	E2
Pleased with the madness of the mazy dance	E2
How tragedy and comedy embrace	W
How farce and epic get a jumbled race	W
How time himself stands still at her command	H
Realms shift their place and ocean turns to land	H
Here gay description Egypt glads with showers	N
Or gives to Zembla fruits to Barca flowers	N
Glittering with ice here hoary hills are seen	F2
There painted valleys of eternal green	F2
In cold December fragrant chaplets blow	G2
And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow	G2
All these and more the cloud compelling Queen	F2
Beholds through fogs that magnify the scene	F2
She tinselled o er in robes of varying hues	H2
With self applause her wild creation views	H2
Sees momentary monsters rise and fall	I2
And with her own fools colours gilds them all	I2
Twas on the day when	J2
	-
rich and grave	G
Like Cimon triumphed both on land and wave	G
Pomps without guilt of bloodless swords and maces	H2
Glad chains warm furs broad banners and broad faces	H2
Now night descending the proud scene was o er	K
But lived in Settle s numbers one day more	K2
Now mayors and shrieves all hushed and satiate lay	H
Yet eat in dreams the custard of the day	H
While pensive poets painful vigils keep	D
Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep	D
Much to the mindful Queen the feast recalls	H2
What city swans once sung within the walls	H2
Much she revolves their arts their ancient praise	H2
And sure succession down from Heywood s days	H2
She saw with joy the line immortal run	L2
Each sire impressed and glaring in his son	L2
So watchful Bruin forms with plastic care	L
Each growing lump and brings it to a bear	L
She saw old Prynne in restless Daniel shine	M2
And Eusden eke out Blackmore s endless line	M2
She saw slow Philips creep like Tate s poor page	N2
And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage	N2
In each she marks her image full expressed	H
But chief in BAY S monster breeding breast	H
Bays formed by nature stage and town to bless	H2
And act and be a coxcomb with success	H2
Dulness with transport eyes the lively dunce	H2
Remembering she herself was pertness once	H2
Now shame to fortune an ill run at play	H
Blanked his bold visage and a thin third day	H
Swearing and supperless the hero sate	H
Blasphemed his gods the dice and damned his fate	H
Then gnawed his pen then dashed it on the ground	H
Sinking from thought to thought a vast profound	H
Plunged for his sense but found no bottom there	L
Yet wrote and floundered on in mere despair	L
Round him much embryo much abortion lay	H
Much future ode and abdicated play	H
Nonsense precipitate like running lead	H
That slipped through cracks and zigzags of the head	H
All that on folly frenzy could beget	H
Fruits of dull heat and sooterkins of wit	H
Next o er his books his eyes began to roll	Z
In pleasing memory of all he stole	Z
How here he sipped how there he plundered snug	O2
And sucked all o er like an industrious bug	O2
Here lay poor Fletcher s half eat scenes and here	J
The frippery of crucified Moli re	H
There hapless Shakespeare yet of Tibbald sore	K2
Wished he had blotted for himself before	K2
The rest on outside merit but presume	P2
Or serve like other fools to fill a room	P2
Such with their shelves as due proportion hold	H
Or their fond parents dressed in red and gold	H
Or where the pictures for the page atone	O
And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own	O
Here swells the shelf with Ogibly the great	H
There stamped with arms Newcastle shines complete	H
Here all his suffering brotherhood retire	Q2
And scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire	K
A Gothic library Of Greece and Rome	R2
Well purged and worthy Settle Banks and Broome	P2
But high above more solid learning shone	O
The classics of an age that heard of none	L2
There Caxton slept with Wynkyn at his side	H
One clasped in wood and one in strong cow hide	H
There saved by spice like mummies many a year	S2
Dry bodies of divinity appear	S2
De Lyra there a dreadful front extends	H2
And here the groaning shelves Philemon bends	H2
Of these twelve volumes twelve of amplest size	H2
Redeemed from tapers and defrauded pies	H2
Inspired he seizes these an altar raise	H2
An hetatomb of pure unsullied lays	H2
That altar crowns a folio commonplace	H2
Founds the whole pile of all his works the base	H2
Quartos octavos shape the lessening pyre	K
A twisted birthday ode completes the spire	Q2
Then he Great tamer of all human art	H
First in my care and ever at my heart	H
Dulness Whose good old cause I yet defend	H
With whom my muse began with whom shall end	H
E er since Sir Fopling s periwig was praise	H2
To the last honours of the butt and bays	H2
O thou of business the directing soul	Z
To this our head like bias to the bowl	Z
Which as more ponderous made its aim more true	T2
Obliquely waddling to the mark in view	T2
O ever gracias to perplexed mankind	H
Still spread a healing mist before the mind	H
And lest we err by wit s wild dancing light	H
Secu	O2

Alexander Pope

The Dunciad: Book I. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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