Proverbial Philosophy Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEDF A DDAGHIJKLMNOCPQDDPLD PADR S BPTUVWXYYZPPA2Y W B2BC2KD2BPAPPJE2PDVP F2| Introductory | A |
| - | |
| Art thou beautiful O my daughter as the budding rose of April | B |
| Are all thy motions music and is poetry throned in thine eye | C |
| Then hearken unto me and I will make the bud a fair flower | D |
| I will plant it upon the bank of Elegance and water it with the water of Cologne | E |
| And in the season it shall come out yea bloom the pride of the parterre | D |
| Ladies shall marvel at its beauty and a Lord shall pluck it at the last | F |
| - | |
| Of Propriety | A |
| - | |
| Study first Propriety for she is indeed the Polestar | D |
| Which shall guide the artless maiden through the mazes of Vanity Fair | D |
| Nay she is the golden chain which holdeth together Society | A |
| The lamp by whose light young Psyche shall approach unblamed her Eros | G |
| Verily Truth is as Eve which was ashamed being naked | H |
| Wherefore doth Propriety dress her with the fair foliage of artifice | I |
| And when she is drest behold she knoweth not herself again | J |
| I walked in the Forest and above me stood the Yew | K |
| Stood like a slumbering giant shrouded in impenetrable shade | L |
| Then I pass'd into the citizen's garden and marked a tree clipt into shape | M |
| The giant's locks had been shorn by the Dalilahshears of Decorum | N |
| And I said Surely nature is goodly but how much goodlier is Art | O |
| I heard the wild notes of the lark floating far over the blue sky | C |
| And my foolish heart went after him and lo I blessed him as he rose | P |
| Foolish for far better is the trained boudoir bulfinch | Q |
| Which pipeth the semblance of a tune and mechanically draweth up water | D |
| And the reinless steed of the desert though his neck be clothed with thunder | D |
| Must yield to him that danceth and 'moveth in the circles' at Astley's | P |
| For verily O my daughter the world is a masquerade | L |
| And God made thee one thing that thou mightest make thyself another | D |
| A maiden's heart is as champagne ever aspiring and struggling upwards | P |
| And it needeth that its motions be checked by the silvered cork of Propriety | A |
| He that can afford the price his be the precious treasure | D |
| Let him drink deeply of its sweetness nor grumble if it tasteth of the cork | R |
| - | |
| OF FRIENDSHIP | S |
| - | |
| Choose judiciously thy friends for to discard them is undesirable | B |
| Yet it is better to drop thy friends O my daughter than to drop thy 'H's' | P |
| Dost thou know a wise woman yea wiser than the children of light | T |
| Hath she a position and a title and are her parties in the Morning Post | U |
| If thou dost cleave unto her and give up unto her thy body and mind | V |
| Think with her ideas and distribute thy smiles at her bidding | W |
| So shalt thou become like unto her and thy manners shall be formed | X |
| And thy name shall be a Sesame at which the doors of the great shall fly open | Y |
| Thou shalt know every Peer his arms and the date of his creation | Y |
| His pedigree and their intermarriages and cousins to the sixth remove | Z |
| Thou shalt kiss the hand of Royalty and lo in next morning's papers | P |
| Side by side with rumours of wars and stories of shipwrecks and sieges | P |
| Shall appear thy name and the minutiae of thy head dress and petticoat | A2 |
| For an enraptured public to muse upon over their matutinal muffin | Y |
| - | |
| Of Reading | W |
| - | |
| Read not Milton for he is dry nor Shakespeare for he wrote of common life | B2 |
| Nor Scott for his romances though fascinating are yet intelligible | B |
| Nor Thackeray for he is a Hogarth a photographer who flattereth not | C2 |
| Nor Kingsley for he shall teach thee that thou shouldest not dream but do | K |
| Read incessantly thy Burke that Burke who nobler than he of old | D2 |
| Treateth of the Peer and Peeress the truly Sublime and Beautiful | B |
| Likewise study the creations of the Prince of modern Romance | P |
| Sigh over Leonard the Martyr and smile on Pelham the puppy | A |
| Learn how love is the dram drinking of existence | P |
| And how we invoke in the Gadara of our still closets | P |
| The beautiful ghost of the Ideal with the simple wand of the pen | J |
| Listen how Maltravers and the orphan forgot all but love | E2 |
| And how Devereux's family chaplain made and unmade kings | P |
| How Eugene Aram though a thief a liar and a murderer | D |
| Yet being intellectual was amongst the noblest of mankind | V |
| So shalt thou live in a world peopled with heroes and master spirits | P |
| And if thou canst not realise the Ideal thou shalt at least idealise the Real | F2 |
Charles Stuart Calverley
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