Elegy Ii: The Anagram Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDDEEFFEGHHIIJJKK EELLEEMFEEHHNOJJEEEE PPEEEEEEGPQQRSLH| Marry and love thy Flavia for she | A |
| Hath all things whereby others beautious be | A |
| For though her eyes be small her mouth is great | B |
| Though they be ivory yet her teeth be jet | C |
| Though they be dim yet she is light enough | D |
| And though her harsh hair fall her skin is rough | D |
| What though her cheeks be yellow her hair's red | E |
| Give her thine and she hath a maidenhead | E |
| These things are beauty's elements where these | F |
| Meet in one that one must as perfect please | F |
| If red and white and each good quality | E |
| Be in thy wench ne'er ask where it doth lie | G |
| In buying things perfumed we ask if there | H |
| Be musk and amber in it but not where | H |
| Though all her parts be not in th' usual place | I |
| She hath yet an anagram of a good face | I |
| If we might put the letters but one way | J |
| In the lean dearth of words what could we say | J |
| When by the Gamut some Musicians make | K |
| A perfect song others will undertake | K |
| By the same Gamut changed to equal it | E |
| Things simply good can never be unfit | E |
| She's fair as any if all be like her | L |
| And if none be then she is singular | L |
| All love is wonder if we justly do | E |
| Account her wonderful why not lovely too | E |
| Love built on beauty soon as beauty dies | M |
| Choose this face changed by no deformities | F |
| Women are all like angels the fair be | E |
| Like those which fell to worse but such as thee | E |
| Like to good angels nothing can impair | H |
| 'Tis less grief to be foul than t' have been fair | H |
| For one night's revels silk and gold we choose | N |
| But in long journeys cloth and leather use | O |
| Beauty is barren oft best husbands say | J |
| There is best land where there is foulest way | J |
| Oh what a sovereign plaster will she be | E |
| If thy past sins have taught thee jealousy | E |
| Here needs no spies nor eunuchs her commit | E |
| Safe to thy foes yea to a Marmosit | E |
| When Belgia's cities the round countries drown | P |
| That dirty foulness guards and arms the town | P |
| So doth her face guard her and so for thee | E |
| Which forced by business absent oft must be | E |
| She whose face like clouds turns the day to night | E |
| Who mightier than the sea makes Moors seem white | E |
| Who though seven years she in the stews had laid | E |
| A Nunnery durst receive and think a maid | E |
| And though in childbed's labour she did lie | G |
| Midwives would swear 'twere but a tympany | P |
| Whom if she accuse herself I credit less | Q |
| Than witches which impossibles confess | Q |
| Whom dildoes bedstaves and her velvet glass | R |
| Would be as loath to touch as Joseph was | S |
| One like none and liked of none fittest were | L |
| For things in fashion every man will wear | H |
John Donne
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