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 GG| A | |
| - | |
| 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
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
About Directions For Making A Birth-day Song
Directions For Making A Birth-day Song is a poem by Jonathan Swift. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
Write your comment about Directions For Making A Birth-day Song poem by Jonathan Swift
Best Poems of Jonathan Swift
