Up At A Villa' Down In The City Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBB CCC DEDD A A FFGG HIJJJ KKKKK LLEEMMM I NNNOOPPIIIIQQRR I SSAAIIIIAs Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality | A |
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I | - |
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Had I but plenty of money money enough and to spare | B |
The house for me no doubt were a house in the city square | B |
Ah such a life such a life as one leads at the window there | B |
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II | - |
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Something to see by Bacchus something to hear at least | C |
There the whole day long one's life is a perfect feast | C |
While up at a villa one lives I maintain it no more than a beast | C |
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III | - |
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Well now look at our villa stuck like the horn of a bull | D |
Just on a mountain's edge as bare as the creature's skull | E |
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull | D |
I scratch my own sometimes to see if the hair's turned wool | D |
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IV | - |
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But the city oh the city the square with the houses Why | - |
They are stone faced white as a curd there's something to take the eye | - |
Houses in four straight lines not a single front awry | - |
You watch who crosses and gossips who saunters who hurries by | - |
Green blinds as a matter of course to draw when the sun gets high | - |
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly | A |
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V | A |
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What of a villa Though winter be over in March by rights | F |
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights | F |
You've the brown ploughed land before where the oxen steam and wheeze | G |
And the hills over smoked behind by the faint grey olive trees | G |
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VI | - |
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Is it better in May I ask you You've summer all at once | H |
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns | I |
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat scarce risen three fingers well | J |
The wild tulip at end of its tube blows out its great red bell | J |
Like a thin clear bubble of blood for the children to pick and sell | J |
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VII | - |
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Is it ever hot in the square There's a fountain to spout and splash | K |
In the shade it sings and springs in the shine such foam bows flash | K |
On the horses with curling fish tails that prance and paddle and pash | K |
Round the lady atop in her conch fifty gazers do not abash | K |
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash | K |
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VIII | - |
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All the year long at the villa nothing to see though you linger | L |
Except yon cypress that points like Death's lean lifted forefinger | L |
Some think fireflies pretty when they mix in the corn and mingle | E |
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a tingle | E |
Late August or early September the stunning cicala is shrill | M |
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill | M |
Enough of the seasons I spare you the months of the fever and chill | M |
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IX | I |
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Ere opening your eyes in the city the blessed church bells begin | N |
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in | N |
You get the pick of the news and it costs you never a pin | N |
By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills lets blood draws teeth | O |
Or the Pulcinello trumpet breaks up the market beneath | O |
At the post office such a scene picture the new play piping hot | P |
And a notice how only this morning three liberal thieves were shot | P |
Above it behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes | I |
And beneath with his crown and his lion some little new law of the Duke's | I |
Or a sonnet with flowery marge to the Reverend Don So and so | I |
Who is Dante Boccaccio Petrarca Saint Jerome and Cicero | I |
And moreover the sonnet goes rhyming the skirts of Saint Paul has reached | Q |
Having preached us those six Lent lectures more unctuous than ever he preached | Q |
Noon strikes here sweeps the procession our Lady borne smiling and smart | R |
With a pink gauze gown all spangles and seven swords stuck in her heart | R |
Bang whang whang goes the drum tootle te tootle the fife | - |
No keeping one's haunches still it's the greatest pleasure in life | - |
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X | I |
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But bless you it's dear it's dear fowls wine at double the rate | S |
They have clapped a new tax upon salt and what oil pays passing the gate | S |
It's a horror to think of And so the villa for me not the city | A |
Beggars can scarcely be choosers but still ah the pity the pity | A |
Look two and two go the priests then the monks with cowls and sandals | I |
And the penitents dressed in white shirts a holding the yellow candles | I |
One he carries a flag up straight and another a cross with handles | I |
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear for the better prevention of scandals | I |
Bang whang whang goes the drum tootle te tootle the fife | - |
Oh a day in the city square there is no such pleasure in life | - |
Robert Browning
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