Don Juan: Canto The Seventeenth Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCBDE FGFGFHII JKJKJKLM NOPQPRSS TUT TV W KCXCXYZS A2B2A2B2A2B2B2B2 XC2XC2XC2B2B2 D2ZE2ZD2ZB2B2 B2F2B2F2B2F2G2G2 SH2SH2SH2XX I2XJ2XJ2XK2K2 H2B2H2B2H2B2H2H2 XB2XB2XB2B2B2The world is full of orphans firstly those | A |
Who are so in the strict sense of the phrase | B |
But many a lonely tree the loftier grows | A |
Than others crowded in the forest's maze | B |
The next are such as are not doomed to lose | C |
Their tender parents in their budding days | B |
But merely their parental tenderness | D |
Which leaves them orphans of the heart no less | E |
- | |
The next are 'only children' as they are styled | F |
Who grow up children only since the old saw | G |
Pronounces that an 'only' 's a spoilt child | F |
But not to go too far I hold it law | G |
That where their education harsh or mild | F |
'Transgresses the great bounds of love or awe | H |
The sufferers be't in heart or intellect | I |
Whate'er the cause are orphans in effect | I |
- | |
But to return unto the stricter rule | J |
As far as words make rules our common notion | K |
Of orphans paints at once a parish school | J |
A half starved babe a wreck upon life's ocean | K |
A human what the Italians nickname 'mule' | J |
A theme for pity or some worse emotion | K |
Yet if examined it might be admitted | L |
The wealthiest orphans are to be more pitied | M |
- | |
Too soon they are parents to themselves for what | N |
Are tutors guardians and so forth compared | O |
With Nature's genial genitors so that | P |
A child of Chancery that Star Chamber ward | Q |
I'll take the likeness I can first come at | P |
Is like a duckling by Dame Partlett reared | R |
And frights especially if 'tis a daughter | S |
The old hen by running headlong to the water | S |
- | |
There is a commonplace book argument | T |
Which glibly glides from every vulgar tongue | U |
When any dare a new light to present | T |
'If you are right then everybody's wrong ' | - |
Suppose the converse of this precedent | T |
So often urged so loudly and so long | V |
'If you are wrong then everybody's right ' | - |
Was ever everybody yet so quite | W |
- | |
Therefore I would solicit free discussion | K |
Upon all points no matter what or whose | C |
Because as ages upon ages push on | X |
The last is apt the former to accuse | C |
Of pillowing its head on a pincushion | X |
Heedless of pricks because it was obtuse | Y |
What was a paradox becomes a truth or | Z |
A something like it as bear witness Luther | S |
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The sacraments have been reduced to two | A2 |
And witches unto none though somewhat late | B2 |
Since burning aged women save a few | A2 |
Not witches only bitches who create | B2 |
Mischief in families as some know or knew | A2 |
Should still be singed but slightly let me state | B2 |
Has been declared an act of inurbanity | B2 |
Malg Sir Matthew Hale's great humanity | B2 |
- | |
Great Galileo was debarred the sun | X |
Because he fixed it and to stop his talking | C2 |
How earth could round the solar orbit run | X |
Found his own legs embargoed from mere walking | C2 |
The man was well nigh dead ere men begun | X |
To think his skull had not some need of caulking | C2 |
But now it seems he's right his notion just | B2 |
No doubt a consolation to his dust | B2 |
- | |
Pythagoras Locke Socrates but pages | D2 |
Might be filled up as vainly as before | Z |
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages | E2 |
Who in his lifetime each was deemed a bore | Z |
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages | D2 |
This they must bear with and perhaps much more | Z |
The wise man's sure when he no more can share it he | B2 |
Will have a firm post obit on posterity | B2 |
- | |
If such doom waits each intellectual giant | B2 |
We little people in our lesser way | F2 |
To life's small rubs should surely be more pliant | B2 |
And so for one will I as well I may | F2 |
Would that I were less bilious but oh fie on't | B2 |
Just as I make my mind up everyday | F2 |
To be a totus teres stoic sage | G2 |
The wind shifts and I fly into a rage | G2 |
- | |
Temperate I am yet never had a temper | S |
Modest I am yet with some slight assurance | H2 |
Changeable too yet somehow idem semper | S |
Patient but not enamoured of endurance | H2 |
Cheerful but sometimes rather apt to whimper | S |
Mild but at times a sort of Hercules furens | H2 |
So that I almost think that the same skin | X |
For one without has two or three within | X |
- | |
Our hero was in canto the sixteenth | I2 |
Left in a tender moonlight situation | X |
Such as enables man to show his strength | J2 |
Moral or physical On this occasion | X |
Whether his virtue triumphed or at length | J2 |
His vice for he was of a kindling nation | X |
Is more than I shall venture to describe | K2 |
Unless some beauty with a kiss should bribe | K2 |
- | |
I leave the thing a problem like all things | H2 |
The morning came and breakfast tea and toast | B2 |
Of which most men partake but no one sings | H2 |
The company whose birth wealth worth have cost | B2 |
My trembling lyre already several strings | H2 |
Assembled with our hostess and mine host | B2 |
The guests dropped in the last but one Her Grace | H2 |
The latest Juan with his virgin face | H2 |
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Which best is to encounter ghost or none | X |
'Twere difficult to say but Juan looked | B2 |
As if he had combated with more than one | X |
Being wan and worn with eyes that hardly brooked | B2 |
The light that through the Gothic windows shone | X |
Her Grace too had a sort of air rebuked | B2 |
Seemed pale and shivered as if she had kept | B2 |
A vigil or dreamt rather more than slept | B2 |
George Gordon Byron
(1)
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