The Chameleon Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEFGGAHIIJJKK LL MMNNOPCC QGRRSTUU VVVVWWAs the Chameleon who is known | A |
To have no colours of his own | A |
But borrows from his neighbour's hue | B |
His white or black his green or blue | B |
And struts as much in ready light | C |
Which credit gives him upon sight | C |
As if the rainbow were entail | D |
Settled on him and his heirs male | D |
So the young 'squire when first he comes | E |
From country school to Will's or Tom's | F |
And equally in truth is fit | G |
To be a statesman or a wit | G |
Without one notion of his own | A |
He saunters wildly up and down | H |
Till some acquaintance good or bad | I |
Takes notice of a staring lad | I |
Admits him in among the gang | J |
They jest reply dispute harangue | J |
He acts and talks as they befriend him | K |
Smear'd with the colours which they lend him | K |
- | |
Thus merely as his fortune chances | L |
His merit or his vice advances | L |
- | |
If haply the sect pursues | M |
That read and comment upon news | M |
He takes up their mysterious face | N |
He drinks his coffee without lace | N |
This week his mimic tongue runs o'er | O |
What they had said the week before | P |
His wisdom sets all Europe right | C |
And teaches Marlborough when to fight | C |
- | |
Or if it be his fate to meet | Q |
With folks who have more wealth than wit | G |
He loves cheap Port and double bub | R |
And settles in the Humdrum club | R |
He learns how stocks will fall or rise | S |
Holds poverty the greatest vice | T |
Thinks wit the bane of conversation | U |
And says that learning spoils a nation | U |
- | |
But if at first he minds his hits | V |
And drinks Champaigne among the wits | V |
Five deep he toasts the towering lasses | V |
Repeats yon verse wrote on glasses | V |
Is in the chair prescribes the law | W |
And lies with those he never saw | W |
Matthew Prior
(2)
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James Yan: Very well, this might be my official poem of the year
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