A Modest Request Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Oliver Wendell Holmes

A Modest Request Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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Complied With After The Dinner At President Everett's Inauguration	A
	-
Scene a back parlor in a certain square	B
Or court or lane in short no matter where	B
Time early morning dear to simple souls	C
Who love its sunshine and its fresh baked rolls	C
Persons take pity on this telltale blush	D
That like the AEthiop whispers Hush oh hush	D
	-
Delightful scene where smiling comfort broods	C
Nor business frets nor anxious care intrudes	C
O si sic omnia I were it ever so	C
But what is stable in this world below	C
Medio e fonte Virtue has her faults	C
The clearest fountains taste of Epsom salts	C
We snatch the cup and lift to drain it dry	E
Its central dimple holds a drowning fly	E
Strong is the pine by Maine's ambrosial streams	C
But stronger augers pierce its thickest beams	C
No iron gate no spiked and panelled door	F
Can keep out death the postman or the bore	F
Oh for a world where peace and silence reign	G
And blunted dulness verebrates in vain	G
The door bell jingles enter Richard Fox	C
And takes this letter from his leathern box	C
	-
Dear Sir	H
In writing on a former day	I
One little matter I forgot to say	I
I now inform you in a single line	J
On Thursday next our purpose is to dine	J
The act of feeding as you understand	K
Is but a fraction of the work in hand	K
Its nobler half is that ethereal meat	L
The papers call 'the intellectual treat '	-
Songs speeches toasts around the festive board	M
Drowned in the juice the College pumps afford	M
For only water flanks our knives and forks	C
So sink or float we swim without the corks	C
Yours is the art by native genius taught	N
To clothe in eloquence the naked thought	N
Yours is the skill its music to prolong	O
Through the sweet effluence of mellifluous song	O
Yours the quaint trick to cram the pithy line	J
That cracks so crisply over bubbling wine	J
And since success your various gifts attends	C
We that is I and all your numerous friends	C
Expect from you your single self a host	P
A speech a song excuse me and a toast	P
Nay not to haggle on so small a claim	Q
A few of each or several of the same	Q
Signed Yours most truly	R
	-
No my sight must fail	S
If that ain't Judas on the largest scale	S
Well this is modest nothing else than that	T
My coat my boots my pantaloons my hat	T
My stick my gloves as well as all my wits	C
Learning and linen everything that fits	C
	-
Jack said my lady is it grog you'll try	E
Or punch or toddy if perhaps you're dry	E
Ah said the sailor though I can't refuse	C
You know my lady 't ain't for me to choose	C
I'll take the grog to finish off my lunch	U
And drink the toddy while you mix the punch	U
	-
	-
	-
THE SPEECH The speaker rising to be seen	V
Looks very red because so very green	V
I rise I rise with unaffected fear	W
Louder speak louder who the deuce can hear	X
I rise I said with undisguised dismay	I
Such are my feelings as I rise I say	I
Quite unprepared to face this learned throng	O
Already gorged with eloquence and song	O
Around my view are ranged on either hand	K
The genius wisdom virtue of the land	K
Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed	Y
Close at my elbow stir their lemonade	Y
Would you like Homer learn to write and speak	Z
That bench is groaning with its weight of Greek	Z
Behold the naturalist who in his teens	C
Found six new species in a dish of greens	C
And lo the master in a statelier walk	A2
Whose annual ciphering takes a ton of chalk	B2
And there the linguist who by common roots	C
Thro' all their nurseries tracks old Noah's shoots	C
How Shem's proud children reared the Assyrian piles	C
While Ham's were scattered through the Sandwich Isles	C
	-
Fired at the thought of all the present shows	C
My kindling fancy down the future flows	C
I see the glory of the coming days	C
O'er Time's horizon shoot its streaming rays	C
Near and more near the radiant morning draws	C
In living lustre rapturous applause	C
From east to west the blazing heralds run	A
Loosed from the chariot of the ascending sun	A
Through the long vista of uncounted years	C
In cloudless splendor three tremendous cheers	C
My eye prophetic as the depths unfold	C2
Sees a new advent of the age of gold	C2
While o'er the scene new generations press	C
New heroes rise the coming time to bless	C
Not such as Homer's who we read in Pope	D2
Dined without forks and never heard of soap	D2
Not such as May to Marlborough Chapel brings	C
Lean hungry savage anti everythings	C
Copies of Luther in the pasteboard style	E2
But genuine articles the true Carlyle	E2
While far on high the blazing orb shall shed	F2
Its central light on Harvard's holy head	F2
And learning's ensigns ever float unfurled	G2
Here in the focus of the new born world	G2
The speaker stops and trampling down the pause	C
Roars through the hall the thunder of applause	C
One stormy gust of long suspended Ahs	C
One whirlwind chaos of insane hurrahs	C
	-
	-
	-
THE SONG But this demands a briefer line	J
A shorter muse and not the old long Nine	J
Long metre answers for a common song	O
Though common metre does not answer long	O
	-
She came beneath the forest dome	H2
To seek its peaceful shade	Y
An exile from her ancient home	H2
A poor forsaken maid	Y
No banner flaunting high above	I2
No blazoned cross she bore	F
One holy book of light and love	I2
Was all her worldly store	F
	-
The dark brown shadows passed away	I
And wider spread the green	V
And where the savage used to stray	I
The rising mart was seen	V
So when the laden winds had brought	N
Their showers of golden rain	G
Her lap some precious gleanings caught	J2
Like Ruth's amid the grain	G
	-
But wrath soon gathered uncontrolled	C2
Among the baser churls	C
To see her ankles red with gold	C2
Her forehead white with pearls	C
Who gave to thee the glittering bands	C
That lace thine azure veins	C
Who bade thee lift those snow white hands	C
We bound in gilded chains	C
	-
These are the gems my children gave	K2
The stately dame replied	L2
The wise the gentle and the brave	K2
I nurtured at my side	L2
If envy still your bosom stings	C
Take back their rims of gold	C2
My sons will melt their wedding rings	C
And give a hundred fold	C2
	-
	-
	-
THE TOAST Oh tell me ye who thoughtless ask	M2
Exhausted nature for a threefold task	M2
In wit or pathos if one share remains	C
A safe investment for an ounce of brains	C
Hard is the job to launch the desperate pun	A
A pun job dangerous as the Indian one	A
Turned by the current of some stronger wit	N2
Back from the object that you mean to hit	N2
Like the strange missile which the Australian throws	C
Your verbal boomerang slaps you on the nose	C
One vague inflection spoils the whole with doubt	O2
One trivial letter ruins all left out	O2
A knot can choke a felon into clay	I
A not will save him spelt without the k	I
The smallest word has some unguarded spot	J2
And danger lurks in i without a dot	J2
	-
Thus great Achilles who had shown his zeal	P2
In healing wounds died of a wounded heel	P2
Unhappy chief who when in childhood doused	Q2
Had saved his bacon had his feet been soused	Q2
Accursed heel that killed a hero stout	Q2
Oh had your mother known that you were out	Q2
Death had not entered at the trifling part	Q2
That still defies the small chirurgeon's art	Q2
With corns and bunions not the glorious John	R2
Who wrote the book we all have pondered on	R2
But other bunions bound in fleecy hose	C
To Pilgrim's Progress unrelenting foes	C
	-
	-
	-
A HEALTH unmingled with the reveller's wine	J
To him whose title is indeed divine	J
Truth's sleepless watchman on her midnight tower	H
Whose lamp burns brightest when the tempests lower	H
Oh who can tell with what a leaden flight	Q2
Drag the long watches of his weary night	Q2
While at his feet the hoarse and blinding gale	S
Strews the torn wreck and bursts the fragile sail	S
When stars have faded when the wave is dark	S2
When rocks and sands embrace the foundering bark	S2
But still he pleads with unavailing cry	E
Behold the light O wanderer look or die	E
	-
A health fair Themis Would the enchanted vine	J
Wreathed its green tendrils round this cup of thine	J
If Learning's radiance fill thy modern court	Q2
Its glorious sunshine streams through Blackstone's port	Q2
	-
Lawyers are thirsty and their clients too	Q2
Witness at least if memory serve me true	Q2
Those old tribunals famed for dusty suits	C
Where men sought justice ere they brushed their boots	C
And what can match to solve a learned doubt	Q2
The warmth within that comes from cold with out	Q2
	-
Health to the art whose glory is to give	T2
The crowning boon that makes it life to live	U2
Ask not her home the rock where nature flings	C
Her arctic lichen last of living things	C
The gardens fragrant with the orient's balm	V2
From the low jasmine to the star like palm	V2
Hail her as mistress o'er the distant waves	C
And yield their tribute to her wandering slaves	C
Wherever moistening the ungrateful soil	W2
The tear of suffering tracks the path of toil	W2
There in the anguish of his fevered hours	C
Her gracious finger points to healing flowers	C
Where the lost felon steals away to die	E
Her soft hand waves before his closing eye	E
Where hunted misery finds his darkest lair	B
The midnight taper shows her kneeling there	B
VIRTUE the guide that men and nations own	X2
And LAW the bulwark that protects her throne	X2
And HEALTH to all its happiest charm that lends	C
These and their servants man's untiring friends	C
Pour the bright lymph that Heaven itself lets fall	Y2
In one fair bumper let us toast them all	Y2