Shakespeare's Expostulation Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIGJKLMNNOKPQ QRQANFSTAUVWTXYZA2B2 C2D2AVE2AF2UNVFG2H2H 2QI2AJ2WK2L2NNM2N2N2 O2O2P2Q2R2IDS2IT2U2V 2W2H2FFF| Masters I sleep not quiet in my grave | A |
| There where they laid me by the Avon shore | B |
| In that some crazy wights have set it forth | C |
| By arguments most false and fanciful | D |
| Analogy and far drawn inference | E |
| That Francis Bacon Earl of Verulam | F |
| A man whom I remember in old days | G |
| A learned judge with sly adhesive palms | H |
| To which the suitor's gold was wont to stick mdash | I |
| That this same Verulam had writ the plays | G |
| Which were the fancies of my frolic brain | J |
| What can they urge to dispossess the crown | K |
| Which all my comrades and the whole loud world | L |
| Did in my lifetime lay upon my brow | M |
| Look straitly at these arguments and see | N |
| How witless and how fondly slight they be | N |
| Imprimis they have urged that being born | O |
| In the mean compass of a paltry town | K |
| I could not in my youth have trimmed my mind | P |
| To such an eagle pitch but must be found | Q |
| Like the hedge sparrow somewhere near the ground | Q |
| Bethink you sirs that though I was denied | R |
| The learning which in colleges is found | Q |
| Yet may a hungry brain still find its fo | A |
| Wherever books may lie or men may be | N |
| And though perchance by Isis or by Cam | F |
| The meditative philosophic plant | S |
| May best luxuriate yet some would say | T |
| That in the task of limning mortal life | A |
| A fitter preparation might be made | U |
| Beside the banks of Thames And then again | V |
| If I be suspect in that I was not | W |
| A fellow of a college how I pray | T |
| Will Jonson pass or Marlowe or the rest | X |
| Whose measured verse treads with as proud a gait | Y |
| As that which was my own Whence did they suck | Z |
| This honey that they stored Can you recite | A2 |
| The vantages which each of these has had | B2 |
| And I had not Or is the argument | C2 |
| That my Lord Verulam hath written all | D2 |
| And covers in his wide embracing self | A |
| The stolen fame of twenty smaller men | V |
| You prate about my learning I would urge | E2 |
| My want of learning rather as a proof | A |
| That I am still myself Have I not traced | F2 |
| A seaboard to Bohemia and made | U |
| The cannons roar a whole wide century | N |
| Before the first was forged Think you then | V |
| That he the ever learned Verulam | F |
| Would have erred thus So may my very faults | G2 |
| In their gross falseness prove that I am true | H2 |
| And by that falseness gender truth in you | H2 |
| And what is left They say that they have found | Q |
| A script wherein the writer tells my Lord | I2 |
| He is a secret poet True enough | A |
| But surely now that secret is o'er past | J2 |
| Have you not read his poems Know you not | W |
| That in our day a learned chancellor | K2 |
| Might better far dispense unjustest law | L2 |
| Than be suspect of such frivolity | N |
| As lies in verse Therefore his poetry | N |
| Was secret Now that he is gone | M2 |
| 'Tis so no longer You may read his verse | N2 |
| And judge if mine be better or be worse | N2 |
| Read and pronounce The meed of praise is thine | O2 |
| But still let his be his and mine be mine | O2 |
| I say no more but how can you for swear | P2 |
| Outspoken Jonson he who knew me well | Q2 |
| So too the epitaph which still you read | R2 |
| Think you they faced my sepulchre with lies mdash | I |
| Gross lies so evident and palpable | D |
| That every townsman must have wot of it | S2 |
| And not a worshipper within the church | I |
| But must have smiled to see the marbled fraud | T2 |
| Surely this touches you But if by chance | U2 |
| My reasoning still leaves you obdurate | V2 |
| I'll lay one final plea I pray you look | W2 |
| On my presentment as it reaches you | H2 |
| My features shall be sponsors for my fame | F |
| My brow shall speak when Shakespeare's voice is dumb | F |
| And be his warrant in an age to come | F |
Arthur Conan Doyle
(1)
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