Up At A Villa--down In The City Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AAA BBB CDCC EEEEEF GGHH IJKKK LLLLL MMDDNNN OOOPPQQ RRSSTTUUVV WWFFXXXXVVHad I but plenty of money money enough and to spare | A |
The house for me no doubt were a house in the city square | A |
Ah such a life such a life as one leads at the window there | A |
- | |
Something to see by Bacchus something to hear at least | B |
There the whole day long one's life is a perfect feast | B |
While up at a villa one lives I maintain it no more than a beast | B |
- | |
Well now look at our villa stuck like the horn of a bull | C |
Just on a mountain edge as bare as the creature's skull | D |
Save a mere shag of a bush with hardly a leaf to pull | C |
I scratch my own sometimes to see if the hair's turned wool | C |
- | |
But the city oh the city the square with the houses Why | E |
They are stone faced white as a curd there's something to take the eye | E |
Houses in four straight lines not a single front awry | E |
You watch who crosses and gossips who saunters who hurries by | E |
Green blinds as a matter of course to draw when the sun gets high | E |
And the shops with fanciful signs which are painted properly | F |
- | |
What of a villa Though winter be over in March by rights | G |
'Tis May perhaps ere the snow shall have withered well off the heights | G |
You've the brown ploughed land before where the oxen steam and wheeze | H |
And the hills over smoked behind by the faint gray olive trees | H |
- | |
Is it better in May I ask you You've summer all at once | I |
In a day he leaps complete with a few strong April suns | J |
'Mid the sharp short emerald wheat scarce risen three fingers well | K |
The wild tulip at end of its tube blows out its great red bell | K |
Like a thin clear bubble of blood for the children to pick and sell | K |
- | |
Is it ever hot in the square There's a fountain to spout and splash | L |
In the shade it sings and springs in the shine such foambows flash | L |
On the horses with curling fish tails that prance and paddle and pash | L |
Round the lady atop in her conch fifty gazers do not abash | L |
Though all that she wears is some weeds round her waist in a sort of sash | L |
- | |
All the year long at the villa nothing to see though you linger | M |
Except yon cypress that points like death's lean lifted forefinger | M |
Some think fireflies pretty when they mix in the corn and mingle | D |
Or thrid the stinking hemp till the stalks of it seem a tingle | D |
Late August or early September the stunning cicala is shrill | N |
And the bees keep their tiresome whine round the resinous firs on the hill | N |
Enough of the seasons I spare you the months of the fever and chill | N |
- | |
Ere you open your eyes in the city the blessed church bells begin | O |
No sooner the bells leave off than the diligence rattles in | O |
You get the pick of the news and it costs you never a pin | O |
By and by there's the travelling doctor gives pills lets blood draws teeth | P |
Or the Pulcinello trumpet breaks up the market beneath | P |
At the post office such a scene picture the new play piping hot | Q |
And a notice how only this morning three liberal thieves were shot | Q |
- | |
Above it behold the Archbishop's most fatherly of rebukes | R |
And beneath with his crown and his lion some little new law of the Duke's | R |
Or a sonnet with flowery marge to the Reverend Don So and so | S |
Who is Dante Boccaccio Petrarca Saint Jerome and Cicero | S |
And moreover the sonnet goes rhyming the skirts of Saint Paul has reached | T |
Having preached us those six Lent lectures more unctuous than ever he preached | T |
Noon strikes here sweeps the procession our Lady borne smiling and smart | U |
With a pink gauze gown all spangles and seven swords stuck in her heart | U |
Bang whang whang goes the drum tootle te tootle the fife | V |
No keeping one's haunches still it's the greatest pleasure in life | V |
- | |
But bless you it's dear it's dear fowls wine at double the rate | W |
They have clapped a new tax upon salt and what oil pays passing the gate | W |
It's a horror to think of And so the villa for me not the city | F |
Beggars can scarcely be choosers but still ah the pity the pity | F |
Look two and two go the priests then the monks with cowls and sandals | X |
And the penitents dressed in white shirts a holding the yellow candles | X |
One he carries a flag up straight and another a cross with handles | X |
And the Duke's guard brings up the rear for the better prevention of scandals | X |
Bang whang whang goes the drum tootle te tootle the fife | V |
Oh a day in the city square there is no such pleasure in life | V |
Robert Browning
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Up At A Villa--down In The City poem by Robert Browning
Best Poems of Robert Browning