On Glenriddell's Fox Breaking His Chain Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDDDDEEFG HHII JJGGKLDD MMNNOP QQRRDDSSGGEE DDTTTTGGTTTTGG RRUVOODD WTHOU Liberty thou art my theme | A |
Not such as idle poets dream | A |
Who trick thee up a heathen goddess | B |
That a fantastic cap and rod has | C |
Such stale conceits are poor and silly | D |
I paint thee out a Highland filly | D |
A sturdy stubborn handsome dapple | D |
As sleek's a mouse as round's an apple | D |
That when thou pleasest canst do wonders | E |
But when thy luckless rider blunders | E |
Or if thy fancy should demur there | F |
Wilt break thy neck ere thou go further | G |
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These things premised I sing a Fox | H |
Was caught among his native rocks | H |
And to a dirty kennel chained | I |
How he his liberty regained | I |
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Glenriddell Whig without a stain | J |
A Whig in principle and grain | J |
Could'st thou enslave a free born creature | G |
A native denizen of Nature | G |
How could'st thou with a heart so good | K |
A better ne'er was sluiced with blood | L |
Nail a poor devil to a tree | D |
That ne'er did harm to thine or thee | D |
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The staunchest Whig Glenriddell was | M |
Quite frantic in his country's cause | M |
And oft was Reynard's prison passing | N |
And with his brother Whigs canvassing | N |
The Rights of Men the Powers of Women | O |
With all the dignity of Freemen | P |
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Sir Reynard daily heard debates | Q |
Of Princes' Kings' and Nations' fates | Q |
With many rueful bloody stories | R |
Of Tyrants Jacobites and Tories | R |
From liberty how angels fell | D |
That now are galley slaves in hell | D |
How Nimrod first the trade began | S |
Of binding Slavery's chains on Man | S |
How fell Semiramis G d d mn her | G |
Did first with sacrilegious hammer | G |
All ills till then were trivial matters | E |
For Man dethron'd forge hen peck fetters | E |
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How Xerxes that abandoned Tory | D |
Thought cutting throats was reaping glory | D |
Until the stubborn Whigs of Sparta | T |
Taught him great Nature's Magna Charta | T |
How mighty Rome her fiat hurl'd | T |
Resistless o'er a bowing world | T |
And kinder than they did desire | G |
Polish'd mankind with sword and fire | G |
With much too tedious to relate | T |
Of ancient and of modern date | T |
But ending still how Billy Pitt | T |
Unlucky boy with wicked wit | T |
Has gagg'd old Britain drain'd her coffer | G |
As butchers bind and bleed a heifer | G |
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Thus wily Reynard by degrees | R |
In kennel listening at his ease | R |
Suck'd in a mighty stock of knowledge | U |
As much as some folks at a College | V |
Knew Britain's rights and constitution | O |
Her aggrandisement diminution | O |
How fortune wrought us good from evil | D |
Let no man then despise the Devil | D |
As who should say I never can need him ' | - |
Since we to scoundrels owe our freedom | W |
Robert Burns
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