The Dean-s Answer Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIJKK EELLMMNN| The nymph who wrote this in an amorous fit | A |
| I cannot but envy the pride of her wit | A |
| Which thus she will venture profusely to throw | B |
| On so mean a design and a subject so low | B |
| For mean's her design and her subject as mean | C |
| The first but a rebus the last but a dean | C |
| A dean's but a parson and what is a rebus | D |
| A thing never known to the Muses or Phoebus | D |
| The corruption of verse for when all is done | E |
| It is but a paraphrase made on a pun | E |
| But a genius like hers no subject can stifle | F |
| It shows and discovers itself through a trifle | F |
| By reading this trifle I quickly began | G |
| To find her a great wit but the dean a small man | G |
| Rich ladies will furnish their garrets with stuff | H |
| Which others for mantuas would think fine enough | H |
| So the wit that is lavishly thrown away here | I |
| Might furnish a second rate poet a year | J |
| Thus much for the verse we proceed to the next | K |
| Where the nymph has entirely forsaken her text | K |
| Her fine panegyrics are quite out of season | E |
| And what she describes to be merit is treason | E |
| The changes which faction has made in the state | L |
| Have put the dean's politics quite out of date | L |
| Now no one regards what he utters with freedom | M |
| And should he write pamphlets no great man would read 'em | M |
| And should want or desert stand in need of his aid | N |
| This racer would prove but a dull founder'd jade | N |
Jonathan Swift
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