The Village: Book I Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCD AAAAEEFF EGHHII AAJJKKLLMM NNOOEELL AAAAIIAAPP QQAARREEKKSSII IIAATTIIUUVVMMWWXXAA AA AATT EEII YYZZHHWWA2A2B2B2AAA2 A2 AAAAC2C2TTII A2A2SSEEIIIIII A2A2EED2D2III E2E2YYF2F2IIG2G2D2D2 H2H2 PPI2I2J2J2BBAA K2K2L2The Village Life and every care that reigns | A |
O'er youthful peasants and declining swains | A |
What labour yields and what that labour past | B |
Age in its hour of languor finds at last | B |
What form the real picture of the poor | C |
Demand a song the Muse can give no more | D |
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Fled are those times when in harmonious strains | A |
The rustic poet praised his native plains | A |
No shepherds now in smooth alternate verse | A |
Their country's beauty or their nymphs' rehearse | A |
Yet still for these we frame the tender strain | E |
Still in our lays fond Corydons complain | E |
And shepherds' boys their amorous pains reveal | F |
The only pains alas they never feel | F |
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On Mincio's banks in Caesar's bounteous reign | E |
If Tityrus found the Golden Age again | G |
Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong | H |
Mechanic echoes of the Mantuan song | H |
From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray | I |
Where Virgil not where Fancy leads the way | I |
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Yes thus the Muses sing of happy swains | A |
Because the Muses never knew their pains | A |
They boast their peasants' pipes but peasants now | J |
Resign their pipes and plod behind the plough | J |
And few amid the rural tribe have time | K |
To number syllables and play with rhyme | K |
Save honest Duck what son of verse could share | L |
The poet's rapture and the peasant's care | L |
Or the great labours of the field degrade | M |
With the new peril of a poorer trade | M |
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From this chief cause these idle praises spring | N |
That themes so easy few forbear to sing | N |
For no deep thought the trifling subjects ask | O |
To sing of shepherds is an easy task | O |
The happy youth assumes the common strain | E |
A nymph his mistress and himself a swain | E |
With no sad scenes he clouds his tuneful prayer | L |
But all to look like her is painted fair | L |
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I grant indeed that fields and flocks have charms | A |
For him that grazes or for him that farms | A |
But when amid such pleasing scenes I trace | A |
The poor laborious natives of the place | A |
And see the mid day sun with fervid ray | I |
On their bare heads and dewy temples play | I |
While some with feebler heads and fainter hearts | A |
Deplore their fortune yet sustain their parts | A |
Then shall I dare these real ills to hide | P |
In tinsel trappings of poetic pride | P |
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No cast by Fortune on a frowning coast | Q |
Which neither groves nor happy valleys boast | Q |
Where other cares than those the Muse relates | A |
And other shepherds dwell with other mates | A |
By such examples taught I paint the Cot | R |
As Truth will paint it and as Bards will not | R |
Nor you ye poor of letter'd scorn complain | E |
To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain | E |
O'ercome by labour and bow'd down by time | K |
Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme | K |
Can poets soothe you when you pine for bread | S |
By winding myrtles round your ruin'd shed | S |
Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower | I |
Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour | I |
- | |
Lo where the heath with withering brake grown o'er | I |
Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor | I |
From thence a length of burning sand appears | A |
Where the thin harvest waves its wither'd ears | A |
Rank weeds that every art and care defy | T |
Reign o'er the land and rob the blighted rye | T |
There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar | I |
And to the ragged infant threaten war | I |
There poppies nodding mock the hope of toil | U |
There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil | U |
Hardy and high above the slender sheaf | V |
The slimy mallow waves her silky leaf | V |
O'er the young shoot the charlock throws a shade | M |
And clasping tares cling round the sickly blade | M |
With mingled tints the rocky coasts abound | W |
And a sad splendour vainly shines around | W |
So looks the nymph whom wretched arts adorn | X |
Betray'd by man then left for man to scorn | X |
Whose cheek in vain assumes the mimic rose | A |
While her sad eyes the troubled breast disclose | A |
Whose outward splendour is but folly's dress | A |
Exposing most when most it gilds distress | A |
- | |
Here joyous roam a wild amphibious race | A |
With sullen woe display'd in every face | A |
Who far from civil arts and social fly | T |
And scowl at strangers with suspicious eye | T |
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Here too the lawless merchant of the main | E |
Draws from his plough th' intoxicated swain | E |
Want only claim'd the labour of the day | I |
But vice now steals his nightly rest away | I |
- | |
Where are the swains who daily labour done | Y |
With rural games play'd down the setting sun | Y |
Who struck with matchless force the bounding ball | Z |
Or made the pond'rous quoit obliquely fall | Z |
While some huge Ajax terrible and strong | H |
Engaged some artful stripling of the throng | H |
And fell beneath him foil'd while far around | W |
Hoarse triumph rose and rocks return'd the sound | W |
Where now are these Beneath yon cliff they stand | A2 |
To show the freighted pinnace where to land | A2 |
To load the ready steed with guilty haste | B2 |
To fly in terror o'er the pathless waste | B2 |
Or when detected in their straggling course | A |
To foil their foes by cunning or by force | A |
Or yielding part which equal knaves demand | A2 |
To gain a lawless passport through the land | A2 |
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Here wand'ring long amid these frowning fields | A |
I sought the simple life that Nature yields | A |
Rapine and Wrong and Fear usurp'd her place | A |
And a bold artful surly savage race | A |
Who only skill'd to take the finny tribe | C2 |
The yearly dinner or septennial bribe | C2 |
Wait on the shore and as the waves run high | T |
On the tost vessel bend their eager eye | T |
Which to their coast directs its vent'rous way | I |
Theirs or the ocean's miserable prey | I |
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As on their neighbouring beach yon swallows stand | A2 |
And wait for favouring winds to leave the land | A2 |
While still for flight the ready wing is spread | S |
So waited I the favouring hour and fled | S |
Fled from those shores where guilt and famine reign | E |
And cried Ah hapless they who still remain | E |
Who still remain to hear the ocean roar | I |
Whose greedy waves devour the lessening shore | I |
Till some fierce tide with more imperious sway | I |
Sweeps the low hut and all it holds away | I |
When the sad tenant weeps from door to door | I |
And begs a poor protection from the poor | I |
- | |
But these are scenes where Nature's niggard hand | A2 |
Gave a spare portion to the famish'd land | A2 |
Hers is the fault if here mankind complain | E |
Of fruitless toil and labour spent in vain | E |
But yet in other scenes more fair in view | D2 |
Where Plenty smiles alas she smiles for few | D2 |
And those who taste not yet behold her store | I |
Are as the slaves that dig the golden ore | I |
The wealth around them makes them doubly poor | I |
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Or will you deem them amply paid in health | E2 |
Labour's fair child that languishes with wealth | E2 |
Go then and see them rising with the sun | Y |
Through a long course of daily toil to run | Y |
See them beneath the dog star's raging heat | F2 |
When the knees tremble and the temples beat | F2 |
Behold them leaning on their scythes look o'er | I |
The labour past and toils to come explore | I |
See them alternate suns and showers engage | G2 |
And hoard up aches and anguish for their age | G2 |
Through fens and marshy moors their steps pursue | D2 |
When their warm pores imbibe the evening dew | D2 |
Then own that labour may as fatal be | H2 |
To these thy slaves as thine excess to thee | H2 |
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Amid this tribe too oft a manly pride | P |
Strives in strong toil the fainting heart to hide | P |
There may you see the youth of slender frame | I2 |
Contend with weakness weariness and shame | I2 |
Yet urged along and proudly loth to yield | J2 |
He strives to join his fellows of the field | J2 |
Till long contending nature droops at last | B |
Declining health rejects his poor repast | B |
His cheerless spouse the coming danger sees | A |
And mutual murmurs urge the slow disease | A |
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Yet grant them health 'tis not for us to tell | K2 |
Though the head droops not that the heart is well | K2 |
Or wil | L2 |
George Crabbe
(1)
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