My Study: A Letter In Hudibrastic Verse Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABC DEBBFFGGHHIB JJKK LLMMNNBBOOPPQQBBRRRR SSJJBBRRTTUUBBBBVVBB WWXXKKBBYYZZYY BBA2B2 C2C2D2D2E2E2F2F2GGG2 H2| You bid me Ned describe the place | A |
| Where I one of the rhyming race | A |
| Pursue my studies con amore | B |
| And wanton with the muse in glory | C |
| - | |
| Well figure to your senses straight | D |
| Upon the house's topmost height | E |
| A closet just six feet by four | B |
| With whitewash'd walls and plaster floor | B |
| So noble large 'tis scarcely able | F |
| To admit a single chair and table | F |
| And lest the muse should die with cold | G |
| A smoky grate my fire to hold | G |
| So wondrous small 'twould much it pose | H |
| To melt the icedrop on one's nose | H |
| And yet so big it covers o'er | I |
| Full half the spacious room and more | B |
| - | |
| A window vainly stuff'd about | J |
| To keep November's breezes out | J |
| So crazy that the panes proclaim | K |
| That soon they mean to leave the frame | K |
| - | |
| My furniture I sure may crack | L |
| A broken chair without a back | L |
| A table wanting just two legs | M |
| One end sustain'd by wooden pegs | M |
| A desk of that I am not fervent | N |
| The work of Sir your humble servant | N |
| Who though I say't am no such fumbler | B |
| A glass decanter and a tumbler | B |
| From which my night parch'd throat I lave | O |
| Luxurious with the limpid wave | O |
| A chest of drawers in antique sections | P |
| And saw'd by me in all directions | P |
| So small Sir that whoever views 'em | Q |
| Swears nothing but a doll could use 'em | Q |
| To these if you will add a store | B |
| Of oddities upon thee floor | B |
| A pair of globes electric balls | R |
| Scales quadrants prisms and cobbler's awls | R |
| And crowds of books on rotten shelves | R |
| Octavos folios quartos twelves | R |
| I think dear Ned you curious dog | S |
| You'll have my earthly catalogue | S |
| But stay I nearly had left out | J |
| My bellows destitute of snout | J |
| And on the walls Good Heavens why there | B |
| I've such a load of precious ware | B |
| Of heads and coins and silver medals | R |
| And organ works and broken pedals | R |
| For I was once a building music | T |
| Though soon of that employ I grew sick | T |
| And skeletons of laws which shoot | U |
| All out of one primordial root | U |
| That you at such a sight would swear | B |
| Confusion's self had settled there | B |
| There stands just by a broken sphere | B |
| A Cicero without an ear | B |
| A neck on which by logic good | V |
| I know for sure a head once stood | V |
| But who it was the able master | B |
| Had moulded in the mimic planter | B |
| Whether 't was Pope or Coke or Burn | W |
| I never yet could justly learn | W |
| But knowing well that any head | X |
| Is made to answer for the dead | X |
| And sculptors first their faces frame | K |
| And after pitch upon a name | K |
| Nor think it aught of a misnomer | B |
| To christen Chaucer's busto Homer | B |
| Because they both have beards which you know | Y |
| Will mark them well from Joan and Juno | Y |
| For some great man I could not tell | Z |
| But Neck might answer just as well | Z |
| So perch'd it up all in a row | Y |
| With Chatham and with Cicero | Y |
| - | |
| Then all around in just degree | B |
| A range of portraits you may see | B |
| Of mighty men and eke of women | A2 |
| Who are no whit inferior to men | B2 |
| - | |
| With these fair dames and heroes round | C2 |
| I call my garret classic ground | C2 |
| For though confined 't will well contain | D2 |
| The ideal flights of Madam Brain | D2 |
| No dungeon's walls no cell confined | E2 |
| Can cramp the energies of mind | E2 |
| Thus though my heart may seem so small | F2 |
| I've friends and 't will contain them all | F2 |
| And should it e'er become so cold | G |
| That these it will no longer hold | G |
| No more may Heaven her blessings give | G2 |
| I shall not then be fit to live | H2 |
Henry Kirk White
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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