Inviting A Friend To Supper Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEEFFGHIIBBJKLLMM KKNNOOBBPPHHQQBAIIRS SS| Tonight grave sir both my poor house and I | A |
| Do equally desire your company | B |
| Not that we think us worthy such a guest | C |
| But that your worth will dignify our feast | D |
| With those that come whose grace may make that seem | E |
| Something which else could hope for no esteem | E |
| It is the fair acceptance sir creates | F |
| The entertainment perfect not the cates | F |
| Yet shall you have to rectify your palate | G |
| An olive capers or some better salad | H |
| Ushering the mutton with a short legged hen | I |
| If we can get her full of eggs and then | I |
| Lemons and wine for sauce to these a coney | B |
| Is not to be despaired of for our money | B |
| And though fowl now be scarce yet there are clerks | J |
| The sky not falling think we may have larks | K |
| I'll tell you of more and lie so you will come | L |
| Of partridge pheasant woodcock of which some | L |
| May yet be there and godwit if we can | M |
| Knat rail and ruff too Howsoe'er my man | M |
| Shall read a piece of Virgil Tacitus | K |
| Livy or of some better book to us | K |
| Of which we'll speak our minds amidst our meat | N |
| And I'll profess no verses to repeat | N |
| To this if ought appear which I know not of | O |
| That will the pastry not my paper show of | O |
| Digestive cheese and fruit there sure will be | B |
| But that which most doth take my Muse and me | B |
| Is a pure cup of rich Canary wine | P |
| Which is the Mermaid's now but shall be mine | P |
| Of which had Horace or Anacreon tasted | H |
| Their lives as do their lines till now had lasted | H |
| Tobacco nectar or the Thespian spring | Q |
| Are all but Luther's beer to this I sing | Q |
| Of this we shall sup free but moderately | B |
| And we will have no Pooly or Parrot by | A |
| Nor shall our cups make any guilty men | I |
| But at our parting we shall be as when | I |
| We innocently met No simple word | R |
| That shall be uttered at our mirthful board | S |
| Shall make us sad next morning or affright | S |
| The liberty that we'll enjoy tonight | S |
Ben Jonson
(1)
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