A Left-handed Letter[1] Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCC DEFFGGHHIIJJKKLLMNOO DDPPQQRRLL STUH| TO DR SHERIDAN | A |
| - | |
| - | |
| Delany reports it and he has a shrewd tongue | B |
| That we both act the part of the clown and cow dung | B |
| We lie cramming ourselves and are ready to burst | C |
| Yet still are no wiser than we were at first | C |
| - | |
| Pudet haec opprobria I freely must tell ye | D |
| Et dici potuisse et non potuisse refelli | E |
| Though Delany advised you to plague me no longer | F |
| You reply and rejoin like Hoadly of Bangor | F |
| I must now at one sitting pay off my old score | G |
| How many to answer One two three or four | G |
| But because the three former are long ago past | H |
| I shall for method sake begin with the last | H |
| You treat me like a boy that knocks down his foe | I |
| Who ere t'other gets up demands the rising blow | I |
| Yet I know a young rogue that thrown flat on the field | J |
| Would as he lay under cry out Sirrah yield | J |
| So the French when our generals soundly did pay them | K |
| Went triumphant to church and sang stoutly Te Deum | K |
| So the famous Tom Leigh when quite run a ground | L |
| Comes off by out laughing the company round | L |
| In every vile pamphlet you'll read the same fancies | M |
| Having thus overthrown all our farther advances | N |
| My offers of peace you ill understood | O |
| Friend Sheridan when will you know your own good | O |
| 'Twas to teach you in modester language your duty | D |
| For were you a dog I could not be rude t'ye | D |
| As a good quiet soul who no mischief intends | P |
| To a quarrelsome fellow cries Let us be friends | P |
| But we like Ant us and Hercules fight | Q |
| The oftener you fall the oftener you write | Q |
| And I'll use you as he did that overgrown clown | R |
| I'll first take you up and then take you down | R |
| And 'tis your own case for you never can wound | L |
| The worst dunce in your school till he's heaved from the ground | L |
| - | |
| I beg your pardon for using my left hand but I was in great haste and | S |
| the other hand was employed at the same time in writing some letters of | T |
| business September I will send you the rest when I have | U |
| leisure but pray come to dinner with the company you met here last | H |
Jonathan Swift
(1)
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