Directions For Making A Birth-day Song Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJKK LLMMNGOOPQRRJJQQLLQQ QQQQSSQQTTUGGGVWRRQQ QQJJXXJJJJQQQQYYGGZZ QQJJJJLLQQQQA2A2JJQQ JJB2B2JJJJLTJJJJC2C2 SSQQQQJJGGQQJJJJJJJJ JJGGTTRD2JJJJQQJJJJQ QQQLLE2E2QQGGLLGGQQQ QGGJJJJLLQQQQJJJJJJQ QF2F2QQGGJJQQLLLTJJQ QGGIIJJGGGGQQGGJJJJJ JJJSSJJQQQQQQG2G2TTH 2H2GGQQGGGGJJGGGGJJI 2I2JJJ2J2H2WWWGGGGLL GGA | |
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To form a just and finish'd piece | B |
Take twenty gods of Rome or Greece | B |
Whose godships are in chief request | C |
And fit your present subject best | C |
And should it be your hero's case | D |
To have both male and female race | D |
Your business must be to provide | E |
A score of goddesses beside | E |
Some call their monarchs sons of Saturn | F |
For which they bring a modern pattern | F |
Because they might have heard of one | G |
Who often long'd to eat his son | G |
But this I think will not go down | H |
For here the father kept his crown | H |
Why then appoint him son of Jove | I |
Who met his mother in a grove | I |
To this we freely shall consent | J |
Well knowing what the poets meant | J |
And in their sense 'twixt me and you | K |
It may be literally true | K |
Next as the laws of verse require | L |
He must be greater than his sire | L |
For Jove as every schoolboy knows | M |
Was able Saturn to depose | M |
And sure no Christian poet breathing | N |
Would be more scrupulous than a Heathen | G |
Or if to blasphemy it tends | O |
That's but a trifle among friends | O |
Your hero now another Mars is | P |
Makes mighty armies turn their a s | Q |
Behold his glittering falchion mow | R |
Whole squadrons at a single blow | R |
While Victory with wings outspread | J |
Flies like an eagle o'er his head | J |
His milk white steed upon its haunches | Q |
Or pawing into dead men's paunches | Q |
As Overton has drawn his sire | L |
Still seen o'er many an alehouse fire | L |
Then from his arm hoarse thunder rolls | Q |
As loud as fifty mustard bowls | Q |
For thunder still his arm supplies | Q |
And lightning always in his eyes | Q |
They both are cheap enough in conscience | Q |
And serve to echo rattling nonsense | Q |
The rumbling words march fierce along | S |
Made trebly dreadful in your song | S |
Sweet poet hired for birth day rhymes | Q |
To sing of wars choose peaceful times | Q |
What though for fifteen years and more | T |
Janus has lock'd his temple door | T |
Though not a coffeehouse we read in | U |
Has mention'd arms on this side Sweden | G |
Nor London Journals nor the Postmen | G |
Though fond of warlike lies as most men | G |
Thou still with battles stuff thy head full | V |
For must thy hero not be dreadful | W |
Dismissing Mars it next must follow | R |
Your conqueror is become Apollo | R |
That he's Apollo is as plain as | Q |
That Robin Walpole is M cenas | Q |
But that he struts and that he squints | Q |
You'd know him by Apollo's prints | Q |
Old Phoebus is but half as bright | J |
For yours can shine both day and night | J |
The first perhaps may once an age | X |
Inspire you with poetic rage | X |
Your Phoebus Royal every day | J |
Not only can inspire but pay | J |
Then make this new Apollo sit | J |
Sole patron judge and god of wit | J |
How from his altitude he stoops | Q |
To raise up Virtue when she droops | Q |
On Learning how his bounty flows | Q |
And with what justice he bestows | Q |
Fair Isis and ye banks of Cam | Y |
Be witness if I tell a flam | Y |
What prodigies in arts we drain | G |
From both your streams in George's reign | G |
As from the flowery bed of Nile | Z |
But here's enough to show your style | Z |
Broad innuendoes such as this | Q |
If well applied can hardly miss | Q |
For when you bring your song in print | J |
He'll get it read and take the hint | J |
It must be read before 'tis warbled | J |
The paper gilt and cover marbled | J |
And will be so much more your debtor | L |
Because he never knew a letter | L |
And as he hears his wit and sense | Q |
To which he never made pretence | Q |
Set out in hyperbolic strains | Q |
A guinea shall reward your pains | Q |
For patrons never pay so well | A2 |
As when they scarce have learn'd to spell | A2 |
Next call him Neptune with his trident | J |
He rules the sea you see him ride in't | J |
And if provoked he soundly firks his | Q |
Rebellious waves with rods like Xerxes | Q |
He would have seized the Spanish plate | J |
Had not the fleet gone out too late | J |
And in their very ports besiege them | B2 |
But that he would not disoblige them | B2 |
And make the rascals pay him dearly | J |
For those affronts they give him yearly | J |
'Tis not denied that when we write | J |
Our ink is black our paper white | J |
And when we scrawl our paper o'er | L |
We blacken what was white before | T |
I think this practice only fit | J |
For dealers in satiric wit | J |
But you some white lead ink must get | J |
And write on paper black as jet | J |
Your interest lies to learn the knack | C2 |
Of whitening what before was black | C2 |
Thus your encomium to be strong | S |
Must be applied directly wrong | S |
A tyrant for his mercy praise | Q |
And crown a royal dunce with bays | Q |
A squinting monkey load with charms | Q |
And paint a coward fierce in arms | Q |
Is he to avarice inclined | J |
Extol him for his generous mind | J |
And when we starve for want of corn | G |
Come out with Amalthea's horn | G |
For all experience this evinces | Q |
The only art of pleasing princes | Q |
For princes' love you should descant | J |
On virtues which they know they want | J |
One compliment I had forgot | J |
But songsters must omit it not | J |
I freely grant the thought is old | J |
Why then your hero must be told | J |
In him such virtues lie inherent | J |
To qualify him God's vicegerent | J |
That with no title to inherit | J |
He must have been a king by merit | J |
Yet be the fancy old or new | G |
Tis partly false and partly true | G |
And take it right it means no more | T |
Than George and William claim'd before | T |
Should some obscure inferior fellow | R |
Like Julius or the youth of Pella | D2 |
When all your list of Gods is out | J |
Presume to show his mortal snout | J |
And as a Deity intrude | J |
Because he had the world subdued | J |
O let him not debase your thoughts | Q |
Or name him but to tell his faults | Q |
Of Gods I only quote the best | J |
But you may hook in all the rest | J |
Now birth day bard with joy proceed | J |
To praise your empress and her breed | J |
First of the first to vouch your lies | Q |
Bring all the females of the skies | Q |
The Graces and their mistress Venus | Q |
Must venture down to entertain us | Q |
With bended knees when they adore her | L |
What dowdies they appear before her | L |
Nor shall we think you talk at random | E2 |
For Venus might be her great grandam | E2 |
Six thousand years has lived the Goddess | Q |
Your heroine hardly fifty odd is | Q |
Besides your songsters oft have shown | G |
That she has Graces of her own | G |
Three Graces by Lucina brought her | L |
Just three and every Grace a daughter | L |
Here many a king his heart and crown | G |
Shall at their snowy feet lay down | G |
In royal robes they come by dozens | Q |
To court their English German cousins | Q |
Beside a pair of princely babies | Q |
That five years hence will both be Hebes | Q |
Now see her seated in her throne | G |
With genuine lustre all her own | G |
Poor Cynthia never shone so bright | J |
Her splendour is but borrow'd light | J |
And only with her brother linkt | J |
Can shine without him is extinct | J |
But Carolina shines the clearer | L |
With neither spouse nor brother near her | L |
And darts her beams o'er both our isles | Q |
Though George is gone a thousand miles | Q |
Thus Berecynthia takes her place | Q |
Attended by her heavenly race | Q |
And sees a son in every God | J |
Unawed by Jove's all shaking nod | J |
Now sing his little highness Freddy | J |
Who struts like any king already | J |
With so much beauty show me any maid | J |
That could resist this charming Ganymede | J |
Where majesty with sweetness vies | Q |
And like his father early wise | Q |
Then cut him out a world of work | F2 |
To conquer Spain and quell the Turk | F2 |
Foretel his empire crown'd with bays | Q |
And golden times and halcyon days | Q |
And swear his line shall rule the nation | G |
For ever till the conflagration | G |
But now it comes into my mind | J |
We left a little duke behind | J |
A Cupid in his face and size | Q |
And only wants to want his eyes | Q |
Make some provision for the younker | L |
Find him a kingdom out to conquer | L |
Prepare a fleet to waft him o'er | L |
Make Gulliver his commodore | T |
Into whose pocket valiant Willy put | J |
Will soon subdue the realm of Lilliput | J |
A skilful critic justly blames | Q |
Hard tough crank guttural harsh stiff names | Q |
The sense can ne'er be too jejune | G |
But smooth your words to fit the tune | G |
Hanover may do well enough | I |
But George and Brunswick are too rough | I |
Hesse Darmstadt makes a rugged sound | J |
And Guelp the strongest ear will wound | J |
In vain are all attempts from Germany | G |
To find out proper words for harmony | G |
And yet I must except the Rhine | G |
Because it clinks to Caroline | G |
Hail queen of Britain queen of rhymes | Q |
Be sung ten hundred thousand times | Q |
Too happy were the poets' crew | G |
If their own happiness they knew | G |
Three syllables did never meet | J |
So soft so sliding and so sweet | J |
Nine other tuneful words like that | J |
Would prove even Homer's numbers flat | J |
Behold three beauteous vowels stand | J |
With bridegroom liquids hand in hand | J |
In concord here for ever fix'd | J |
No jarring consonant betwixt | J |
May Caroline continue long | S |
For ever fair and young in song | S |
What though the royal carcass must | J |
Squeezed in a coffin turn to dust | J |
Those elements her name compose | Q |
Like atoms are exempt from blows | Q |
Though Caroline may fill your gaps | Q |
Yet still you must consult your maps | Q |
Find rivers with harmonious names | Q |
Sabrina Medway and the Thames | Q |
Britannia long will wear like steel | G2 |
But Albion's cliffs are out at heel | G2 |
And Patience can endure no more | T |
To hear the Belgic lion roar | T |
Give up the phrase of haughty Gaul | H2 |
But proud Iberia soundly maul | H2 |
Restore the ships by Philip taken | G |
And make him crouch to save his bacon | G |
Nassau who got the name of Glorious | Q |
Because he never was victorious | Q |
A hanger on has always been | G |
For old acquaintance bring him in | G |
To Walpole you might lend a line | G |
But much I fear he's in decline | G |
And if you chance to come too late | J |
When he goes out you share his fate | J |
And bear the new successor's frown | G |
Or whom you once sang up sing down | G |
Reject with scorn that stupid notion | G |
To praise your hero for devotion | G |
Nor entertain a thought so odd | J |
That princes should believe in God | J |
But follow the securest rule | I2 |
And turn it all to ridicule | I2 |
'Tis grown the choicest wit at court | J |
And gives the maids of honour sport | J |
For since they talk'd with Dr Clarke | J2 |
They now can venture in the dark | J2 |
That sound divine the truth has spoke all | H2 |
And pawn'd his word Hell is not local | W |
This will not give them half the trouble | W |
Of bargains sold or meanings double | W |
Supposing now your song is done | G |
To Mynheer Handel next you run | G |
Who artfully will pare and prune | G |
Your words to some Italian tune | G |
Then print it in the largest letter | L |
With capitals the more the better | L |
Present it boldly on your knee | G |
And take a guinea for your fee | G |
Jonathan Swift
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