Don Juan: Canto The Ninth Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABABCD EFEFEFGG HIHIHIJJ KLKKKKMM FJFJFJKK KCKCKCNN CNCNCNOO CKCKCKCC FIFIFJCC CPCPCPKK NQNQRQST UVUVUWXX KYKYKYCC NNNNNAA ZKNKNKKK KQKQKQTT NCNCNCNQ KNKNKNCC A2B2A2C2A2C2KK NFNFNFNN KD2KD2KD2CC E2KE2KE2KKNOh Wellington or 'Villainton' for Fame | A |
Sounds the heroic syllables both ways | B |
France could not even conquer your great name | A |
But punn'd it down to this facetious phrase | B |
Beating or beaten she will laugh the same | A |
You have obtain'd great pensions and much praise | B |
Glory like yours should any dare gainsay | C |
Humanity would rise and thunder 'Nay ' | D |
- | |
I don't think that you used Kinnaird quite well | E |
In Marinet's affair in fact 'twas shabby | F |
And like some other things won't do to tell | E |
Upon your tomb in Westminster's old abbey | F |
Upon the rest 'tis not worth while to dwell | E |
Such tales being for the tea hours of some tabby | F |
But though your years as man tend fast to zero | G |
In fact your grace is still but a young hero | G |
- | |
Though Britain owes and pays you too so much | H |
Yet Europe doubtless owes you greatly more | I |
You have repair'd Legitimacy's crutch | H |
A prop not quite so certain as before | I |
The Spanish and the French as well as Dutch | H |
Have seen and felt how strongly you restore | I |
And Waterloo has made the world your debtor | J |
I wish your bards would sing it rather better | J |
- | |
You are 'the best of cut throats ' do not start | K |
The phrase is Shakspeare's and not misapplied | L |
War's a brain spattering windpipe slitting art | K |
Unless her cause by right be sanctified | K |
If you have acted once a generous part | K |
The world not the world's masters will decide | K |
And I shall be delighted to learn who | M |
Save you and yours have gain'd by Waterloo | M |
- | |
I am no flatterer you 've supp'd full of flattery | F |
They say you like it too 't is no great wonder | J |
He whose whole life has been assault and battery | F |
At last may get a little tired of thunder | J |
And swallowing eulogy much more than satire he | F |
May like being praised for every lucky blunder | J |
Call'd 'Saviour of the Nations' not yet saved | K |
And 'Europe's Liberator' still enslaved | K |
- | |
I've done Now go and dine from off the plate | K |
Presented by the Prince of the Brazils | C |
And send the sentinel before your gate | K |
A slice or two from your luxurious meals | C |
He fought but has not fed so well of late | K |
Some hunger too they say the people feels | C |
There is no doubt that you deserve your ration | N |
But pray give back a little to the nation | N |
- | |
I don't mean to reflect a man so great as | C |
You my lord duke is far above reflection | N |
The high Roman fashion too of Cincinnatus | C |
With modern history has but small connection | N |
Though as an Irishman you love potatoes | C |
You need not take them under your direction | N |
And half a million for your Sabine farm | O |
Is rather dear I'm sure I mean no harm | O |
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Great men have always scorn'd great recompenses | C |
Epaminondas saved his Thebes and died | K |
Not leaving even his funeral expenses | C |
George Washington had thanks and nought beside | K |
Except the all cloudless glory which few men's is | C |
To free his country Pitt too had his pride | K |
And as a high soul'd minister of state is | C |
Renown'd for ruining Great Britain gratis | C |
- | |
Never had mortal man such opportunity | F |
Except Napoleon or abused it more | I |
You might have freed fallen Europe from the unity | F |
Of tyrants and been blest from shore to shore | I |
And now what is your fame Shall the Muse tune it ye | F |
Now that the rabble's first vain shouts are o'er | J |
Go hear it in your famish'd country's cries | C |
Behold the world and curse your victories | C |
- | |
As these new cantos touch on warlike feats | C |
To you the unflattering Muse deigns to inscribe | P |
Truths that you will not read in the Gazettes | C |
But which 'tis time to teach the hireling tribe | P |
Who fatten on their country's gore and debts | C |
Must be recited and without a bribe | P |
You did great things but not being great in mind | K |
Have left undone the greatest and mankind | K |
- | |
Death laughs Go ponder o'er the skeleton | N |
With which men image out the unknown thing | Q |
That hides the past world like to a set sun | N |
Which still elsewhere may rouse a brighter spring | Q |
Death laughs at all you weep for look upon | R |
This hourly dread of all whose threaten'd sting | Q |
Turns life to terror even though in its sheath | S |
Mark how its lipless mouth grins without breath | T |
- | |
Mark how it laughs and scorns at all you are | U |
And yet was what you are from ear to ear | V |
It laughs not there is now no fleshy bar | U |
So call'd the Antic long hath ceased to hear | V |
But still he smiles and whether near or far | U |
He strips from man that mantle far more dear | W |
Than even the tailor's his incarnate skin | X |
White black or copper the dead bones will grin | X |
- | |
And thus Death laughs it is sad merriment | K |
But still it is so and with such example | Y |
Why should not Life be equally content | K |
With his superior in a smile to trample | Y |
Upon the nothings which are daily spent | K |
Like bubbles on an ocean much less ample | Y |
Than the eternal deluge which devours | C |
Suns as rays worlds like atoms years like hours | C |
- | |
'To be or not to be that is the question ' | - |
Says Shakspeare who just now is much in fashion | N |
I am neither Alexander nor Hephaestion | N |
Nor ever had for abstract fame much passion | N |
But would much rather have a sound digestion | N |
Than Buonaparte's cancer could I dash on | N |
Through fifty victories to shame or fame | A |
Without a stomach what were a good name | A |
- | |
'O dura ilia messorum ' 'Oh | Z |
Ye rigid guts of reapers ' I translate | K |
For the great benefit of those who know | N |
What indigestion is that inward fate | K |
Which makes all Styx through one small liver flow | N |
A peasant's sweat is worth his lord's estate | K |
Let this one toil for bread that rack for rent | K |
He who sleeps best may be the most content | K |
- | |
'To be or not to be ' Ere I decide | K |
I should be glad to know that which is being | Q |
'T is true we speculate both far and wide | K |
And deem because we see we are all seeing | Q |
For my part I 'll enlist on neither side | K |
Until I see both sides for once agreeing | Q |
For me I sometimes think that life is death | T |
Rather than life a mere affair of breath | T |
- | |
'Que scais je ' was the motto of Montaigne | N |
As also of the first academicians | C |
That all is dubious which man may attain | N |
Was one of their most favourite positions | C |
There's no such thing as certainty that's plain | N |
As any of Mortality's conditions | C |
So little do we know what we're about in | N |
This world I doubt if doubt itself be doubting | Q |
- | |
It is a pleasant voyage perhaps to float | K |
Like Pyrrho on a sea of speculation | N |
But what if carrying sail capsize the boat | K |
Your wise men don't know much of navigation | N |
And swimming long in the abyss of thought | K |
Is apt to tire a calm and shallow station | N |
Well nigh the shore where one stoops down and gathers | C |
Some pretty shell is best for moderate bathers | C |
- | |
'But heaven ' as Cassio says 'is above all | A2 |
No more of this then let us pray ' We have | B2 |
Souls to save since Eve's slip and Adam's fall | A2 |
Which tumbled all mankind into the grave | C2 |
Besides fish beasts and birds 'The sparrow's fall | A2 |
Is special providence ' though how it gave | C2 |
Offence we know not probably it perch'd | K |
Upon the tree which Eve so fondly search'd | K |
- | |
Oh ye immortal gods what is theogony | N |
Oh thou too mortal man what is philanthropy | F |
Oh world which was and is what is cosmogony | N |
Some people have accused me of misanthropy | F |
And yet I know no more than the mahogany | N |
That forms this desk of what they mean lykanthropy | F |
I comprehend for without transformation | N |
Men become wolves on any slight occasion | N |
- | |
But I the mildest meekest of mankind | K |
Like Moses or Melancthon who have ne'er | D2 |
Done anything exceedingly unkind | K |
And though I could not now and then forbear | D2 |
Following the bent of body or of mind | K |
Have always had a tendency to spare | D2 |
Why do they call me misanthrope Because | C |
They hate me not I them and here we'll pause | C |
- | |
'Tis time we should proceed with our good poem | E2 |
For I maintain that it is really good | K |
Not only in the body but the proem | E2 |
However little both are understood | K |
Just now but by and by the Truth will show 'em | E2 |
Herself in her sublimest attitude | K |
And till she doth I fain must be content | K |
To share her b | N |
George Gordon Byron
(1)
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