Don Juan: Canto The Seventh Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABABCC DEFEFEGG HIJKLKMN KKKKKKKK OKPKPKQ KKKKKKRR SESESETT UVUVUVVV KSKSKSKK WKWKWKXX WWWSWSV YKY ZKVV KKKKKKA2 SKSKSKWW XRXRXRKK WEWEWESS KWRWKWVV WXWXWXB2B2 KKKKKKXX XB2XB2X WW KWKWKWSS SKSKSKVV WRWKO Love O Glory what are ye who fly | A |
Around us ever rarely to alight | B |
There's not a meteor in the polar sky | A |
Of such transcendent and more fleeting flight | B |
Chill and chain'd to cold earth we lift on high | A |
Our eyes in search of either lovely light | B |
A thousand and a thousand colours they | C |
Assume then leave us on our freezing way | C |
- | |
And such as they are such my present tale is | D |
A non descript and ever varying rhyme | E |
A versified Aurora Borealis | F |
Which flashes o'er a waste and icy clime | E |
When we know what all are we must bewail us | F |
But ne'ertheless I hope it is no crime | E |
To laugh at all things for I wish to know | G |
What after all are all things but a show | G |
- | |
They accuse me Me the present writer of | H |
The present poem of I know not what | I |
A tendency to under rate and scoff | J |
At human power and virtue and all that | K |
And this they say in language rather rough | L |
Good God I wonder what they would be at | K |
I say no more than hath been said in Dante's | M |
Verse and by Solomon and by Cervantes | N |
- | |
By Swift by Machiavel by Rochefoucault | K |
By Fenelon by Luther and by Plato | K |
By Tillotson and Wesley and Rousseau | K |
Who knew this life was not worth a potato | K |
'Tis not their fault nor mine if this be so | K |
For my part I pretend not to be Cato | K |
Nor even Diogenes We live and die | K |
But which is best you know no more than I | K |
- | |
Socrates said our only knowledge was | O |
'To know that nothing could be known ' a pleasant | K |
Science enough which levels to an ass | P |
Each man of wisdom future past or present | K |
Newton that proverb of the mind alas | P |
Declared with all his grand discoveries recent | K |
That he himself felt only 'like a youth | Q |
Picking up shells by the great ocean Truth ' | - |
- | |
Ecclesiastes said 'that all is vanity' | K |
Most modern preachers say the same or show it | K |
By their examples of true Christianity | K |
In short all know or very soon may know it | K |
And in this scene of all confess'd inanity | K |
By saint by sage by preacher and by poet | K |
Must I restrain me through the fear of strife | R |
From holding up the nothingness of life | R |
- | |
Dogs or men for I flatter you in saying | S |
That ye are dogs your betters far ye may | E |
Read or read not what I am now essaying | S |
To show ye what ye are in every way | E |
As little as the moon stops for the baying | S |
Of wolves will the bright muse withdraw one ray | E |
From out her skies then howl your idle wrath | T |
While she still silvers o'er your gloomy path | T |
- | |
'Fierce loves and faithless wars' I am not sure | U |
If this be the right reading 'tis no matter | V |
The fact's about the same I am secure | U |
I sing them both and am about to batter | V |
A town which did a famous siege endure | U |
And was beleaguer'd both by land and water | V |
By Souvaroff or Anglice Suwarrow | V |
Who loved blood as an alderman loves marrow | V |
- | |
The fortress is call'd Ismail and is placed | K |
Upon the Danube's left branch and left bank | S |
With buildings in the Oriental taste | K |
But still a fortress of the foremost rank | S |
Or was at least unless 'tis since defaced | K |
Which with your conquerors is a common prank | S |
It stands some eighty versts from the high sea | K |
And measures round of toises thousands three | K |
- | |
Within the extent of this fortification | W |
A borough is comprised along the height | K |
Upon the left which from its loftier station | W |
Commands the city and upon its site | K |
A Greek had raised around this elevation | W |
A quantity of palisades upright | K |
So placed as to impede the fire of those | X |
Who held the place and to assist the foe's | X |
- | |
This circumstance may serve to give a notion | W |
Of the high talents of this new Vauban | W |
But the town ditch below was deep as ocean | W |
The rampart higher than you'd wish to hang | S |
But then there was a great want of precaution | W |
Prithee excuse this engineering slang | S |
Nor work advanced nor cover'd way was there | V |
To hint at least 'Here is no thoroughfare ' | - |
- | |
But a stone bastion with a narrow gorge | Y |
And walls as thick as most skulls born as yet | K |
Two batteries cap a pie as our St George | Y |
Case mated one and t' other 'a barbette ' | - |
Of Danube's bank took formidable charge | Z |
While two and twenty cannon duly set | K |
Rose over the town's right side in bristling tier | V |
Forty feet high upon a cavalier | V |
- | |
But from the river the town 's open quite | K |
Because the Turks could never be persuaded | K |
A Russian vessel e'er would heave in sight | K |
And such their creed was till they were invaded | K |
When it grew rather late to set things right | K |
But as the Danube could not well be waded | K |
They look'd upon the Muscovite flotilla | A2 |
And only shouted 'Allah ' and 'Bis Millah ' | - |
- | |
The Russians now were ready to attack | S |
But oh ye goddesses of war and glory | K |
How shall I spell the name of each Cossacque | S |
Who were immortal could one tell their story | K |
Alas what to their memory can lack | S |
Achilles' self was not more grim and gory | K |
Than thousands of this new and polish'd nation | W |
Whose names want nothing but pronunciation | W |
- | |
Still I 'll record a few if but to increase | X |
Our euphony there was Strongenoff and Strokonoff | R |
Meknop Serge Lwow Arsniew of modern Greece | X |
And Tschitsshakoff and Roguenoff and Chokenoff | R |
And others of twelve consonants apiece | X |
And more might be found out if I could poke enough | R |
Into gazettes but Fame capricious strumpet | K |
It seems has got an ear as well as trumpet | K |
- | |
And cannot tune those discords of narration | W |
Which may be names at Moscow into rhyme | E |
Yet there were several worth commemoration | W |
As e'er was virgin of a nuptial chime | E |
Soft words too fitted for the peroration | W |
Of Londonderry drawling against time | E |
Ending in 'ischskin ' 'ousckin ' 'iffskchy ' 'ouski | S |
Of whom we can insert but Rousamouski | S |
- | |
Scherematoff and Chrematoff Koklophti | K |
Koclobski Kourakin and Mouskin Pouskin | W |
All proper men of weapons as e'er scoff'd high | R |
Against a foe or ran a sabre through skin | W |
Little cared they for Mahomet or Mufti | K |
Unless to make their kettle drums a new skin | W |
Out of their hides if parchment had grown dear | V |
And no more handy substitute been near | V |
- | |
Then there were foreigners of much renown | W |
Of various nations and all volunteers | X |
Not fighting for their country or its crown | W |
But wishing to be one day brigadiers | X |
Also to have the sacking of a town | W |
A pleasant thing to young men at their years | X |
'Mongst them were several Englishmen of pith | B2 |
Sixteen call'd Thomson and nineteen named Smith | B2 |
- | |
Jack Thomson and Bill Thomson all the rest | K |
Had been call'd 'Jemmy ' after the great bard | K |
I don't know whether they had arms or crest | K |
But such a godfather's as good a card | K |
Three of the Smiths were Peters but the best | K |
Amongst them all hard blows to inflict or ward | K |
Was he since so renown'd 'in country quarters | X |
At Halifax ' but now he served the Tartars | X |
- | |
The rest were jacks and Gills and Wills and Bills | X |
But when I've added that the elder jack Smith | B2 |
Was born in Cumberland among the hills | X |
And that his father was an honest blacksmith | B2 |
I've said all I know of a name that fills | X |
Three lines of the despatch in taking 'Schmacksmith ' | - |
A village of Moldavia's waste wherein | W |
He fell immortal in a bulletin | W |
- | |
I wonder although Mars no doubt's a god | K |
Praise if a man's name in a bulletin | W |
May make up for a bullet in his body | K |
I hope this little question is no sin | W |
Because though I am but a simple noddy | K |
I think one Shakspeare puts the same thought in | W |
The mouth of some one in his plays so doting | S |
Which many people pass for wits by quoting | S |
- | |
Then there were Frenchmen gallant young and gay | S |
But I'm too great a patriot to record | K |
Their Gallic names upon a glorious day | S |
I'd rather tell ten lies than say a word | K |
Of truth such truths are treason they betray | S |
Their country and as traitors are abhorr'd | K |
Who name the French in English save to show | V |
How Peace should make John Bull the Frenchman's foe | V |
- | |
The Russians having built two batteries on | W |
An isle near Ismail had two ends in view | R |
The first was to bombard it and knock down | W |
The public buildings and | K |
George Gordon Byron
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Don Juan: Canto The Seventh poem by George Gordon Byron
Best Poems of George Gordon Byron