To The Reader Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AA BB CC DD EE FF GG HH II JJ II KK II GG LL II GG MM NN OO PQ DD RR II BB II AA SS TT SS UU VW DD XX YZ A2A2 SS OO B2B2 SS C2C2 SS B2B2 SS SS SS D2D2 SS

The title page will show if there thou lookA
Who are the proper subjects of this bookA
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They're boys and girls of all sorts and degreesB
From those of age to children on the kneesB
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Thus comprehensive am I in my notionsC
They tempt me to it by their childish motionsC
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We now have boys with beards and girls that beD
Big as old women wanting gravityD
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Then do not blame me 'cause I thus describe themE
Flatter I may not lest thereby I bribe themE
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To have a better judgment of themselvesF
Than wise men have of babies on their shelvesF
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Their antic tricks fantastic modes and wayG
Show they like very boys and girls do playG
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With all the frantic fopperies of this ageH
And that in open view as on a stageH
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Our bearded men do act like beardless boysI
Our women please themselves with childish toysI
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Our ministers long time by word and penJ
Dealt with them counting them not boys but menJ
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Thunderbolts they shot at them and their toysI
But hit them not 'cause they were girls and boysI
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The better charg'd the wider still they shotK
Or else so high these dwarfs they touched notK
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Instead of men they found them girls and boysI
Addict to nothing as to childish toysI
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Wherefore good reader that I save them mayG
I now with them the very dotterel playG
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And since at gravity they make a tushL
My very beard I cast behind a bushL
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And like a fool stand fing'ring of their toysI
And all to show them they are girls and boysI
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Nor do I blush although I think some mayG
Call me a baby 'cause I with them playG
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I do't to show them how each fingle fangleM
On which they doting are their souls entangleM
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As with a web a trap a gin or snareN
And will destroy them have they not a careN
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Paul seemed to play the fool that he might gainO
Those that were fools indeed if not in grainO
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And did it by their things that they might knowP
Their emptiness and might be brought untoQ
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What would them save from sin and vanityD
A noble act and full of honestyD
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Yet he nor I would like them be in viceR
While by their playthings I would them enticeR
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To mount their thoughts from what are childish toysI
To heaven for that's prepared for girls and boysI
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Nor do I so confine myself to theseB
As to shun graver things I seek to pleaseB
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Those more compos'd with better things than toysI
Though thus I would be catching girls and boysI
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Wherefore if men have now a mind to lookA
Perhaps their graver fancies may be tookA
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With what is here though but in homely rhymesS
But he who pleases all must rise betimesS
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Some I persuade me will be finding faultT
Concluding here I trip and there I haltT
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No doubt some could those grovelling notions raiseS
By fine spun terms that challenge might the baysS
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But should all men be forc'd to lay asideU
Their brains that cannot regulate the tideU
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By this or that man's fancy we should haveV
The wise unto the fool become a slaveW
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What though my text seems mean my morals beD
Grave as if fetch'd from a sublimer treeD
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And if some better handle can a flyX
Than some a text why should we then denyX
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Their making proof or good experimentY
Of smallest things great mischiefs to preventZ
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Wise Solomon did fools to piss ants sendA2
To learn true wisdom and their lies to mendA2
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Yea God by swallows cuckoos and the assS
Shows they are fools who let that season passS
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Which he put in their hand that to obtainO
Which is both present and eternal gainO
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I think the wiser sort my rhymes may slightB2
But what care I the foolish will delightB2
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To read them and the foolish God has choseS
And doth by foolish things their minds composeS
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And settle upon that which is divineC2
Great things by little ones are made to shineC2
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I could were I so pleas'd use higher strainsS
And for applause on tenters stretch my brainsS
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But what needs that the arrow out of sightB2
Does not the sleeper nor the watchman frightB2
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To shoot too high doth but make children gazeS
'Tis that which hits the man doth him amazeS
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And for the inconsiderablenessS
Of things by which I do my mind expressS
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May I by them bring some good thing to passS
As Samson with the jawbone of an assS
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Or as brave Shamgar with his ox's goadD2
Both being things not manly nor for war in modeD2
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I have my end though I myself exposeS
To scorn God will have glory in the closeS

John Bunyan



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