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 SSAAIIII| As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality | A |
| - | |
| I | - |
| - | |
| 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 |
| - | |
| II | - |
| - | |
| 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 |
| - | |
| III | - |
| - | |
| 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 |
| - | |
| IV | - |
| - | |
| 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 |
| - | |
| V | A |
| - | |
| 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 |
| - | |
| VI | - |
| - | |
| 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 |
| - | |
| VII | - |
| - | |
| 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 |
| - | |
| VIII | - |
| - | |
| 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 |
| - | |
| IX | I |
| - | |
| 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 | - |
| - | |
| X | I |
| - | |
| 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
(1)
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