An Epistle To Fleetwood Shephard, Esq. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDEFFGGHHIJFKLL HHMMNNNOOPPQQRRSSMMT TUUUUMMVVCCCWBUUHHXX XBBBBB| When crowding folks with strange ill faces | A |
| Were making legs and begging places | A |
| And some with patents some with merit | B |
| Tired out my good Lord Dorset's spirit | B |
| Sneaking I stood amongst the crew | C |
| Desiring much to speak with you | C |
| I waited while the clock struck thrice | D |
| And footman brought out fifty lies | E |
| Till patience vex'd and legs grown weary | F |
| I thought it was in vain to tarry | F |
| But did opine it might be better | G |
| By penny post to send a letter | G |
| Now if you miss of this epistle | H |
| I'm baulk'd again and may go whistle | H |
| My business Sir you'll quickly guess | I |
| Is to desire some little place | J |
| And fair pretensions I have for't | F |
| Much need and very small desert | K |
| Whene'er I writ to you I wanted | L |
| I always begg'd you always granted | L |
| Now as you took me up when little | H |
| Gave me my learning and my vittle | H |
| Ask'd for me from my lord things fitting | M |
| Kind as I'd been your own begetting | M |
| Confirm what formerly you've given | N |
| Nor leave me now at six and seven | N |
| As Sunderland has left Mun Stephen | N |
| No family that takes a whelp | O |
| When first he laps and scarce can yelp | O |
| Neglects or turns him out of gate | P |
| When he's grown up to dog's estate | P |
| No parish if they once adopt | Q |
| The spurious brats by strollers dropp'd | Q |
| Leave them when grown up lusty fellows | R |
| To the wide world that is the gallows | R |
| No thank them for their love that's worse | S |
| Than if they'd throttled them at nurse | S |
| My uncle rest his soul when living | M |
| Might have contrived me ways of thriving | M |
| Taught me with cyder to replenish | T |
| My vats or ebbing tide of Rhenish | T |
| So when for hock I drew prickt white wine | U |
| Swear't had the flavour and was right wine | U |
| Or sent me with ten pounds to Furni | U |
| val's Inn to some good rogue attorney | U |
| Where now by forging deeds and cheating | M |
| I'd found some handsome ways of getting | M |
| All this you made me quit to follow | V |
| That sneaking whey faced god Apollo | V |
| Sent me among a fiddling crew | C |
| Of folks I'd never seen nor knew | C |
| Calliope and God knows who | C |
| To add no more invectives to i | W |
| You spoil'd the youth to make a poet | B |
| In common justice Sir there's no man | U |
| That makes the whore but keeps the woman | U |
| Amongst all honest Christian people | H |
| Whoe'er breaks limbs maintains the cripple | H |
| The sum of all I have to say | X |
| Is that you'll put me in some way | X |
| And your petitioner shall pray | X |
| There's one thing more I had almost slipt | B |
| But that may do as well in postscript | B |
| My friend Charles Montague's preferr'd | B |
| Nor would I have it long observed | B |
| That one mouse eats while t'other starved | B |
Matthew Prior
(1)
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