The Charlatan Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDDEEFFGGHHFFFH IJJ KLLFFFFMMNNOPPOLLQQR RSSTTUU LLLL| A | |
| - | |
| The world has never lack'd its charlatans | B |
| More than themselves have lack'd their plans | C |
| One sees them on the stage at tricks | D |
| Which mock the claims of sullen Styx | D |
| What talents in the streets they post | E |
| One of them used to boast | E |
| Such mastership of eloquence | F |
| That he could make the greatest dunce | F |
| Another Tully Cicero | G |
| In all the arts that lawyers know | G |
| 'Ay sirs a dunce a country clown | H |
| The greatest blockhead of your town | H |
| Nay more an animal an ass | F |
| The stupidest that nibbles grass | F |
| Needs only through my course to pass | F |
| And he shall wear the gown | H |
| With credit honour and renown ' | - |
| The prince heard of it call'd the man thus spake | I |
| 'My stable holds a steed | J |
| Of the Arcadian breed | J |
| Of which an orator I wish to make ' | - |
| 'Well sire you can ' | - |
| Replied our man | K |
| At once his majesty | L |
| Paid the tuition fee | L |
| Ten years must roll and then the learned ass | F |
| Should his examination pass | F |
| According to the rules | F |
| Adopted in the schools | F |
| If not his teacher was to tread the air | M |
| With halter'd neck above the public square | M |
| His rhetoric bound on his back | N |
| And on his head the ears of jack | N |
| A courtier told the rhetorician | O |
| With bows and terms polite | P |
| He would not miss the sight | P |
| Of that last pendent exhibition | O |
| For that his grace and dignity | L |
| Would well become such high degree | L |
| And on the point of being hung | Q |
| He would bethink him of his tongue | Q |
| And show the glory of his art | R |
| The power to melt the hardest heart | R |
| And wage a war with time | S |
| By periods sublime | S |
| A pattern speech for orators thus leaving | T |
| Whose work is vulgarly call'd thieving | T |
| 'Ah ' was the charlatan's reply | U |
| 'Ere that the king the ass or I | U |
| Shall one or other of us die ' | - |
| And reason good had he | L |
| We count on life most foolishly | L |
| Though hale and hearty we may be | L |
| In each ten years death cuts down one in three | L |
Jean De La Fontaine
(1)
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