The Climacteric Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCC DDEEFFGGHIJJKKKKBBLL MMNN OOKKMMKKPPKKQQKKRRSS JJKKOTKKKK UUWhen do the reasoning Powers decline | A |
The Ancients said at Forty Nine | A |
At Forty Nine behoves it then | B |
To quit the Inkhorn and the Pen | B |
Since ARISTOTLE so decreed | C |
Premising thus we now proceed | C |
- | |
In that thrice favoured Northern Land | D |
Where most the Flowers of Thought expand | D |
And all things nebulous grow clear | E |
Through Spectacles and Lager Beer | E |
There lived at Dumpelsheim the Lesser | F |
A certain High Dutch Herr Professor | F |
Than GROTIUS more alert and quick | G |
More logical than BURGERSDYCK | G |
His Lectures both so much transcended | H |
That far and wide his Fame extended | I |
Proclaiming him to every clime | J |
Within a Mile of Dumpelsheim | J |
But chief he taught by Day and Night | K |
The Doctrine of the Stagirite | K |
Proving it fixed beyond Dispute | K |
In Ways that none could well refute | K |
For if by Chance 'twas urged that Men | B |
O'er stepped the Limit now and then | B |
He'd show unanswerably still | L |
Either that all they did was Nil | L |
Or else 'twas marked by Indication | M |
Of grievous mental Degradation | M |
Nay he could even trace they say | N |
That Degradation to a Day | N |
- | |
The Years rolled on and as they flew | O |
More famed the Herr Professor grew | O |
His Locus of the Pineal Gland | K |
A Masterpiece he long had planned | K |
Had reached the End of Book Eleven | M |
And he was nearing Forty Seven | M |
Admirers had not long to wait | K |
The last Book came at Forty Eight | K |
And should have been the Heart and Soul | P |
The Crown and Summit of the whole | P |
But now the oddest Thing ensued | K |
'Twas so insufferably crude | K |
So feeble and so poor 'twas plain | Q |
The Writer's Mind was on the wane | Q |
Nothing could possibly be said | K |
E'en Friendship's self must hang the head | K |
While jealous Rivals scarce so civil | R |
Denounced it openly as Drivel | R |
Never was such Collapse In brief | S |
The poor Professor died of Grief | S |
- | |
With fitting mortuary Rhyme | J |
They buried him at Dumpelsheim | J |
And as they sorrowing set about | K |
A Short Memoir the Truth came out | K |
He had been older than he knew | O |
The Parish Clerk had put a | T |
In place of Nought and made his Date | K |
Of Birth a Brace of Years too late | K |
When he had written Book the Last | K |
His true Climacteric had past | K |
- | |
MORAL To estimate your Worth | U |
Be certain as to date of Birth | U |
Henry Austin Dobson
(1)
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