To My Honoured Friend Dr Charleton Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBBBBBCCDDEEFFFFBBGG FFHBIJKLBBMMBBBBNOPP LLQRBBBBKKBB BBSSDD| On His Learned And Useful Works But More Particularly His Treatise Of Stonehenge By Him Restored To The True Founder | A |
| - | |
| - | |
| The longest tyranny that ever sway'd | B |
| Was that wherein our ancestors betray'd | B |
| Their free born reason to the Stagyrite | B |
| And made his torch their universal light | B |
| So truth while only one supplied the state | B |
| Grew scarce and dear and yet sophisticate | B |
| Still it was bought like empiric wares or charms | C |
| Hard words seal'd up with Artistotle's arms | C |
| Columbus was the first that shook his throne | D |
| And found a temperate in a torrid zone | D |
| The feverish air fann'd by a cooling breeze | E |
| The fruitful vales set round with shady trees | E |
| And guiltless men who danced away their time | F |
| Fresh as their groves and happy as their clime | F |
| Had we still paid that homage to a name | F |
| Which only God and nature justly claim | F |
| The western seas had been our utmost bound | B |
| Where poets still might dream the sun was drown'd | B |
| And all the stars that shine in southern skies | G |
| Had been admired by none but savage eyes | G |
| - | |
| Among the asserters of free reason's claim | F |
| Our nation's not the least in worth or fame | F |
| The world to Bacon does not only owe | H |
| Its present knowledge but its future too | B |
| Gilbert shall live till loadstones cease to draw | I |
| Our British fleets the boundless ocean awe | J |
| And noble Boyle not less in nature seen | K |
| Than his great brother read in states and men | L |
| The circling streams once thought but pools of blood | B |
| Whether life's fuel or the body's food | B |
| From dark oblivion Harvey's name shall save | M |
| While Ent keeps all the honour that he gave | M |
| Nor are you learned friend the least renown'd | B |
| Whose fame not circumscribed with English ground | B |
| Flies like the nimble journeys of the light | B |
| And is like that unspent too in its flight | B |
| Whatever truths have been by art or chance | N |
| Redeem'd from error or from ignorance | O |
| Thin in their authors like rich veins of ore | P |
| Your works unite and still discover more | P |
| Such is the healing virtue of your pen | L |
| To perfect cures on books as well as men | L |
| Nor is this work the least you well may give | Q |
| To men new vigour who make stones to live | R |
| Through you the Danes their short dominion lost | B |
| A longer conquest than the Saxons boast | B |
| Stonehenge once thought a temple you have found | B |
| A throne where kings our earthly gods were crown'd | B |
| Where by their wondering subjects they were seen | K |
| Joy'd with their stature and their princely mien | K |
| Our sovereign here above the rest might stand | B |
| And here be chose again to rule the land | B |
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| These ruins shelter'd once his sacred head | B |
| When he from Worcester's fatal battle fled | B |
| Watch'd by the genius of this royal place | S |
| And mighty visions of the Danish race | S |
| His refuge then was for a temple shown | D |
| But he restored 'tis now become a throne | D |
John Dryden
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