Upon Appleton House, To My Lord Fairfax Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD DDDDEEFF DDGHDDDD IJDDKKDD LMNNDDEE OODDNNPP DDQRDDSS TTDDUUVV NNWWFFVV XXNNDDYZWithin this sober frame expect | A |
Work of no foreign architect | A |
That unto caves the quarries drew | B |
And forests did to pastures hew | B |
Who of his great design in pain | C |
Did for a model vault his brain | C |
Whose columns should so high be rais'd | D |
To arch the brows that on them gaz'd | D |
- | |
Why should of all things man unrul'd | D |
Such unproportion'd dwellings build | D |
The beasts are by their dens exprest | D |
And birds contrive an equal nest | D |
The low roof'd tortoises do dwell | E |
In cases fit of tortoise shell | E |
No creature loves an empty space | F |
Their bodies measure out their place | F |
- | |
But he superfluously spread | D |
Demands more room alive than dead | D |
And in his hollow palace goes | G |
Where winds as he themselves may lose | H |
What need of all this marble crust | D |
T'impark the wanton mote of dust | D |
That thinks by breadth the world t'unite | D |
Though the first builders fail'd in height | D |
- | |
But all things are composed here | I |
Like nature orderly and near | J |
In which we the dimensions find | D |
Of that more sober age and mind | D |
When larger sized men did stoop | K |
To enter at a narrow loop | K |
As practising in doors so straight | D |
To strain themselves through Heaven's gate | D |
- | |
And surely when the after age | L |
Shall hither come in pilgrimage | M |
These sacred places to adore | N |
By Vere and Fairfax trod before | N |
Men will dispute how their extent | D |
Within such dwarfish confines went | D |
And some will smile at this as well | E |
As Romulus his bee like cell | E |
- | |
Humility alone designs | O |
Those short but admirable lines | O |
By which ungirt and unconstrain'd | D |
Things greater are in less contain'd | D |
Let others vainly strive t'immure | N |
The circle in the quadrature | N |
These holy mathematics can | P |
In ev'ry figure equal man | P |
- | |
Yet thus the laden house does sweat | D |
And scarce endures the master great | D |
But where he comes the swelling hall | Q |
Stirs and the square grows spherical | R |
More by his magnitude distress'd | D |
Then he is by its straightness press'd | D |
And too officiously it slights | S |
That in itself which him delights | S |
- | |
So honour better lowness bears | T |
Than that unwonted greatness wears | T |
Height with a certain grace does bend | D |
But low things clownishly ascend | D |
And yet what needs there here excuse | U |
Where ev'ry thing does answer use | U |
Where neatness nothing can condemn | V |
Nor pride invent what to contemn | V |
- | |
A stately frontispiece of poor | N |
Adorns without the open door | N |
Nor less the rooms within commends | W |
Daily new furniture of friends | W |
The house was built upon the place | F |
Only as for a mark of grace | F |
And for an inn to entertain | V |
Its lord a while but not remain | V |
- | |
Him Bishops Hill or Denton may | X |
Or Billbrough better hold than they | X |
But nature here hath been so free | N |
As if she said leave this to me | N |
Art would more neatly have defac'd | D |
What she had laid so sweetly waste | D |
In fragrant gardens shady woods | Y |
Deep meadows and transparent floods | Z |
Andrew Marvell
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