An Elegy On The Lady Markham Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCDBBAAEEFFGGHHII JJKKGGLLMNGGAAOPQRBB SSTUBBIIVVBBQQBBBBWW XXUUYZA2B2| As unthrifts groan in straw for their pawn'd beds | A |
| As women weep for their lost maidenheads | A |
| When both are without hope or remedy | B |
| Such an untimely grief I have for thee | B |
| I never saw thy face nor did my heart | C |
| Urge forth mine eyes unto it whilst thou wert | D |
| But being lifted hence that which to thee | B |
| Was death's sad dart proved Cupid's shaft to me | B |
| Whoever thinks me foolish that the force | A |
| Of a report can make me love a corse | A |
| Know he that when with this I do compare | E |
| The love I do a living woman bear | E |
| I find myself most happy now I know | F |
| Where I can find my mistress and can go | F |
| Unto her trimm'd bed and can lift away | G |
| Her grass green mantle and her sheet display | G |
| And touch her naked and though th' envious mold | H |
| In which she lies uncover'd moist and cold | H |
| Strive to corrupt her she will not abide | I |
| With any art her blemishes to hide | I |
| As many living do and know their need | J |
| Yet cannot they in sweetness her exceed | J |
| But make a stink with all their art and skill | K |
| Which their physicians warrant with a bill | K |
| Nor at her door doth heaps of coaches stay | G |
| Footmen and midwives to bar up my way | G |
| Nor needs she any maid or page to keep | L |
| To knock me early from my golden sleep | L |
| With letters that her honour all is gone | M |
| If I not right her cause on such a one | N |
| Her heart is not so hard to make me pay | G |
| For every kiss a supper and a play | G |
| Nor will she ever open her pure lips | A |
| To utter oaths enough to drown our ships | A |
| To bring a plague a famine or the sword | O |
| Upon the land though she should keep her word | P |
| Yet ere an hour be past in some new vein | Q |
| Break them and swear them double o'er again | R |
| Pardon me that with thy blest memory | B |
| I mingle mine own former misery | B |
| Yet dare I not excuse the fate that brought | S |
| These crosses on me for then every thought | S |
| That tended to thy love was black and foul | T |
| Now all as pure as a new baptiz'd soul | U |
| For I protest for all that I can see | B |
| I would not lie one night in bed with thee | B |
| Nor am I jealous but could well abide | I |
| My foe to lie in quiet by thy side | I |
| You worms my rivals whilst she was alive | V |
| How many thousands were there that did strive | V |
| To have your freedom for their sake forbear | B |
| Unseemly holes in her soft skin to wear | B |
| But if you must as what worms can abstain | Q |
| To taste her tender body yet refrain | Q |
| With your disordered eatings to deface her | B |
| But feed yourselves so as you most may grace her | B |
| First through her ear tips see you make a pair | B |
| Of holes which as the moist inclosed air | B |
| Turns into water may the clean drops take | W |
| And in her ears a pair of jewels make | W |
| Have ye not yet enough of that white skin | X |
| The touch whereof in times past would have been | X |
| Enough to have ransom'd many a thousand soul | U |
| Captive to love If not then upward roll | U |
| Your little bodies where I would you have | Y |
| This Epitaph upon her forehead grave | Z |
| 'Living she was young fair and full of wit | A2 |
| Dead all her faults are in her forehead writ ' | B2 |
Francis Beaumont
(1)
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