Ode To Rae Wilson Esq. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBACCDEDDE FFGHGHIIIIJIJ KKLMMLNNCCOKOK IPIPQNNQIRIIRSTST OLUOUVUUVU LLUUUUU UIUILLIIPIP IUUI UUSUUW UBBU EUEUIIOSSO IEIEEXEX OOPYZA2P LOLOOIIOOUOU IPIPOOB2IIB2EOEO EA2EZEWWE C2E I ED2EED2D2XXSESE IOIOEEEE SESELLEE2E2 EEIIA WANDERER Wilson from my native land | A |
Remote O Rae from godliness and thee | B |
Where rolls between us the eternal sea | B |
Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand | A |
Beyond the broadest Scotch of London Wall | C |
Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call | C |
Across the wavy waste between us stretch'd | D |
A friendly missive warns me of a stricture | E |
Wherein my likeness you have darkly etch'd | D |
And though I have not seen the shadow sketch'd | D |
Thus I remark prophetic on the picture | E |
- | |
I guess the features in a line to paint | F |
Their moral ugliness I'm not a saint | F |
Not one of those self constituted saints | G |
Quacks not physicians in the cure of souls | H |
Censors who sniff out mortal taints | G |
And call the devil over his own coals | H |
Those pseudo Privy Councillors of God | I |
Who write down judgments with a pen hard nibb'd | I |
Ushers of Beelzebub's Black Rod | I |
Commending sinners not to ice thick ribb'd | I |
But endless flames to scorch them up like flax | J |
Yet sure of heav'n themselves as if they'd cribb'd | I |
Th' impression of St Peter's keys in wax | J |
- | |
Of such a character no single trace | K |
Exists I know in my fictitious face | K |
There wants a certain cast about the eye | L |
A certain lifting of the nose's tip | M |
A certain curling of the nether lip | M |
In scorn of all that is beneath the sky | L |
In brief it is an aspect deleterious | N |
A face decidedly not serious | N |
A face profane that would not do at all | C |
To make a face at Exeter Hall | C |
That Hall where bigots rant and cant and pray | O |
And laud each other face to face | K |
Till ev'ry farthing candle ray | O |
Conceives itself a great gas light of grace | K |
- | |
Well be the graceless lineaments confest | I |
I do enjoy this bounteous beauteous earth | P |
And dote upon a jest | I |
'Within the limits of becoming mirth' | P |
No solemn sanctimonious face I pull | Q |
Nor think I'm pious when I'm only bilious | N |
Nor study in my sanctum supercilious | N |
To frame a Sabbath Bill or forge a Bull | Q |
I pray for grace repent each sinful act | I |
Peruse but underneath the rose my Bible | R |
And love my neighbour far too well in fact | I |
To call and twit him with a godly tract | I |
That's turn'd by application to a libel | R |
My heart ferments not with the bigot's leaven | S |
All creeds I view with toleration thorough | T |
And have a horror of regarding heaven | S |
As anybody's rotten borough | T |
- | |
What else no part I take in party fray | O |
With troops from Billingsgate's slang whanging | L |
tartars | U |
I fear no Pope and let great Ernest play | O |
At Fox and Goose with Foxs' Martyrs | U |
I own I laugh at over righteous men | V |
I own I shake my sides at ranters | U |
And treat sham Abr'am saints with wicked banters | U |
I even own that there are times but then | V |
It's when I've got my wine I say d canters | U |
- | |
I've no ambition to enact the spy | L |
On fellow souls a Spiritual Pry | L |
'Tis said that people ought to guard their noses | U |
Who thrust them into matters none of theirs | U |
And tho' no delicacy discomposes | U |
Your Saint yet I consider faith and pray'rs | U |
Amongst the privatest of men's affairs | U |
- | |
I do not hash the Gospel in my books | U |
And thus upon the public mind intrude it | I |
As if I thought like Otaheitan cooks | U |
No food was fit to eat till I had chewed it | I |
On Bible stilts I don't affect to stalk | L |
Nor lard with Scripture my familiar talk | L |
For man may pious texts repeat | I |
And yet religion have no inward seat | I |
'Tis not so plain as the old Hill of Howth | P |
A man has got his belly full of meat | I |
Because he talks with victuals in his mouth | P |
- | |
Mere verbiage it is not worth a carrot | I |
Why Socrates or Plato where's the odds | U |
Once taught a jay to supplicate the Gods | U |
And made a Polly theist of a Parrot | I |
- | |
A mere professor spite of all his cant is | U |
Not a whit better than a Mantis | U |
An insect of what clime I can't determine | S |
That lifts its paws most parson like and thence | U |
By simple savages thro' sheer pretence | U |
Is reckon'd quite a saint amongst the vermin | W |
- | |
But where's the reverence or where the nous | U |
To ride on one's religion thro' the lobby | B |
Whether a stalking horse or hobby | B |
To show its pious paces to 'the house' | U |
- | |
I honestly confess that I would hinder | E |
The Scottish member's legislative rigs | U |
That spiritual Pinder | E |
Who looks on erring souls as straying pigs | U |
That must be lash'd by law wherever found | I |
And driv'n to church as to the parish pound | I |
I do confess without reserve or wheedle | O |
I view that grovelling idea as one | S |
Worthy some parish clerk's ambitious son | S |
A charity boy who longs to be a beadle | O |
- | |
On such a vital topic sure 'tis odd | I |
How much a man can differ from his neighbour | E |
One wishes worship freely giv'n to God | I |
Another wants to make it statute labour | E |
The broad distinction in a line to draw | E |
As means to lead us to the skies above | X |
You say Sir Andrew and his love of law | E |
And I the Saviour with his law of love | X |
- | |
Spontaneously to God should tend the soul | O |
Like the magnetic needle to the Pole | O |
But what were that intrinsic virtue worth | P |
Suppose some fellow with more zeal than | Y |
knowledge | Z |
Fresh from St Andrew's College | A2 |
Should nail the conscious needle to the north | P |
- | |
I do confess that I abhor and shrink | L |
From schemes with a religious willy nilly | O |
That frown upon St Giles's sins but blink | L |
The peccadilloes of all Piccadilly | O |
My soul revolts at such a bare hypocrisy | O |
And will not dare not fancy in accord | I |
The Lord of Hosts with an Exclusive Lord | I |
Of this world's aristocracy | O |
It will not own a notion so unholy | O |
As thinking that the rich by easy trips | U |
May go to heav'n whereas the poor and lowly | O |
Must work their passage as they do in ships | U |
- | |
One place there is beneath the burial sod | I |
Where all mankind are equalized by death | P |
Another place there is the Fane of God | I |
Where all are equal who draw living breath | P |
Juggle who will elsewhere with his own soul | O |
Playing the Judas with a temporal dole | O |
He who can come beneath that awful cope | B2 |
In the dread presence of a Maker just | I |
Who metes to ev'ry pinch of human dust | I |
One even measure of immortal hope | B2 |
He who can stand within that holy door | E |
With soul unbow'd by that pure spirit level | O |
And frame unequal laws for rich and poor | E |
Might sit for Hell and represent the Devil | O |
- | |
Such are the solemn sentiments O Rae | E |
In your last Journey Work perchance you ravage | A2 |
Seeming but in more courtly terms to say | E |
I'm but a heedless creedless godless savage | Z |
A very Guy deserving fire and faggots | E |
A Scoffer always on the grin | W |
And sadly given to the mortal sin | W |
Of liking Maw worms less than merry maggots | E |
- | |
The humble records of my life to search | C2 |
I have not herded with mere pagan beasts | E |
But sometimes I have 'sat at good men's feasts ' | - |
And I have been 'where bells have knoll'd to | I |
church ' | - |
Dear bells how sweet the sounds of village bells | E |
When on the undulating air they swim | D2 |
Now loud as welcomes faint now as farewells | E |
And trembling all about the breezy dells | E |
As flutter'd by the wings of Cherubim | D2 |
Meanwhile the bees are chanting a low hymn | D2 |
And lost to sight th' ecstatic lark above | X |
Sings like a soul beatified of love | X |
With now and then the coo of the wild pigeon | S |
O Pagans Heathens Infidels and Doubters | E |
If such sweet sounds can't woo you to religion | S |
Will the harsh voices of church cads and touters | E |
- | |
A man may cry 'Church Church ' at ev'ry word | I |
With no more piety than other people | O |
A daw's not reckon'd a religious bird | I |
Because it keeps a cawing from a steeple | O |
The Temple is a good a holy place | E |
But quacking only gives it an ill savour | E |
While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace | E |
And bring religion's self into disfavour | E |
- | |
Behold yon servitor of God and Mammon | S |
Who binding up his Bible with his Ledger | E |
Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon | S |
A black leg saint a spiritual hedger | E |
Who backs his rigid Sabbath so to speak | L |
Against the wicked remnant of the week | L |
A saving bet against his sinful bias | E |
'Rogue that I am ' he whispers to himself | E2 |
'I lie I cheat do anything for pelf | E2 |
But who on earth can say I am not pious ' | - |
- | |
In proof how over righteousness re acts | E |
Accept an anecdote well based on facts | E |
One Sunday morning at the day don't fret | I |
In riding with a friend to | I |
Thomas Hood
(1)
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