Rural Felicity Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CCDDBB EEFFBBGHIIBBFFBBJJBB GGKKBB LLMMNN OOBBPPBBQRSSBBTTUUVV BBWWXXBBYYBBZZA2A2VV B2B2C2C2BBZZBB| Well the country's a pleasant place sure enough for people that's country born | A |
| And useful no doubt in a natural way for growing our grass and our corn | A |
| It was kindly meant of my cousin Giles to write and invite me down | B |
| Tho' as yet all I've seen of a pastoral life only makes one more partial to town | B |
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| At first I thought I was really come down into all sorts of rural bliss | C |
| For Porkington Place with its cows and its pigs and its poultry looks not much amiss | C |
| There's something about a dairy farm with its different kinds of live stock | D |
| That puts one in mind of Paradise and Adam and his innocent flock | D |
| But somehow the good old Elysium fields have not been well handed down | B |
| And as yet I have found no fields to prefer to dear Leicester Fields up in town | B |
| - | |
| To be sure it is pleasant to walk in the meads and so I should like for miles | E |
| If it wasn't for clodpoles of carpenters that put up such crooked stiles | E |
| For the bars jut out and you must jut out till you're almost broken in two | F |
| If you clamber you're certain sure of a fall and you stick if you try to creep through | F |
| Of course in the end one learns how to climb without constant tumbles down | B |
| But still as to walking so stylishly it's pleasanter done about town | B |
| There's a way I know to avoid the stiles and that's by a walk in a lane | G |
| And I did find a very nice shady one but I never dared go again | H |
| For who should I meet but a rampaging bull that wouldn't be kept in the pound | I |
| A trying to toss the whole world at once by sticking his horns in the ground | I |
| And that by the bye is another thing that pulls rural pleasures down | B |
| Ev'ry day in the country is cattle day and there's only two up in town | B |
| Then I've rose with the sun to go brushing away at the first early pearly dew | F |
| And to meet Aurory or whatever's her name and I always got wetted through | F |
| My shoes are like sops and I caught a bad cold and a nice draggle tail to my gown | B |
| That's not the way that we bathe our feet or wear our pearls up in town | B |
| As for picking flow'rs I have tried at a hedge sweet eglantine roses to snatch | J |
| But mercy on us how nettles will sting and how the long brambles do scratch | J |
| Besides hitching my hat on a nasty thorn that tore all the bows from the crown | B |
| One may walk long enough without hats branching off or losing one's bows about town | B |
| But worse than that in a long rural walk suppose that it blows up for rain | G |
| And all at once you discover yourself in a real St Swithin's Lane | G |
| And while you're running all ducked and drown'd and pelted with sixpenny drops | K |
| Fine weather you hear the farmers say a nice growing show'r for the crops | K |
| But who's to crop me another new hat or grow me another new gown | B |
| For you can't take a shilling fare with a plough as you do with the hackneys in town | B |
| - | |
| Then my nevys too they must drag me off to go with them gathering nuts | L |
| And we always set out by the longest way and return by the shortest cuts | L |
| Short cuts indeed But it's nuts to them to get a poor lustyish aunt | M |
| To scramble through gaps or jump over a ditch when they're morally certain she can't | M |
| For whenever I get in some awkward scrape and it's almost daily the case | N |
| Tho' they don't laugh out the mischievous brats I see the hooray in their face | N |
| - | |
| There's the other day for my sight is short and I saw what was green beyond | O |
| And thought it was all terry firmer and grass till I walked in the duckweed pond | O |
| Or perhaps when I've pully hauled up a bank they see me come launching down | B |
| As none but a stout London female can do as is come a first time out of town | B |
| Then how sweet some say on a mossy bank a verdurous seat to find | P |
| But for my part I always found it a joy that brought a repentance behind | P |
| For the juicy grass with its nasty green has stained a whole breadth of my gown | B |
| And when gowns are dyed I needn't say it's much better done up in town | B |
| As for country fare the first morning I came I heard such a shrill piece of work | Q |
| And ever since and it's ten days ago we've lived upon nothing but pork | R |
| One Sunday except and then I turn'd sick a plague take all countrified cooks | S |
| Why didn't they tell me before I had dined they made pigeon pies of the rooks | S |
| Then the gooseberry wine tho' it's pleasant when up it doesn't agree when it's down | B |
| But it served me right like a gooseberry fool to look for champagne out of town | B |
| To be sure cousin G meant it all for the best when he started this pastoral plan | T |
| And his wife is a worthy domestical soul and she teaches me all that she can | T |
| Such as making of cheese and curing of hams but I'm sure that I never shall learn | U |
| And I've fetched more back ache than butter as yet by chumping away at the churn | U |
| But in making hay tho' it's tanning work I found it more easy to make | V |
| But it tries one's legs and no great relief when you're tired to sit down on the rake | V |
| I'd a country dance too at harvest home with a regular country clown | B |
| But Lord they don't hug one round the waist and give one such smacks in town | B |
| Then I've tried to make friends with the birds and the beasts but they take to such curious rigs | W |
| I'm always at odds with the turkey cock and I can't even please the pigs | W |
| The very hens pick holes in my hands when I grope for the new laid eggs | X |
| And the gander comes hissing out of the pond on purpose to flap at my legs | X |
| I've been bump'd in a ditch by the cow without horns and the old sow trampled me down | B |
| The beasts are as vicious as any wild beasts but they're kept in cages in town | B |
| Another thing is the nasty dogs thro' the village I hardly can stir | Y |
| Since giving a bumpkin a pint of beer just to call off a barking cur | Y |
| And now you would swear all the dogs in the place were set on to hunt me down | B |
| But neither the brutes nor the people I think are as civilly bred as in town | B |
| Last night about twelve I was scared broad awake and all in a tremble of fright | Z |
| But instead of a family murder it proved an owl that flies screeching at night | Z |
| Then there's plenty of ricks and stacks all about and I can't help dreaming of Swing | A2 |
| In short I think that a plastoral life is not the most happiest thing | A2 |
| For besides all the troubles I've mentioned before as endur'd for rurality's sake | V |
| I've been stung by the bees and I've set among ants and once ugh I trod on a snake | V |
| And as to moskitoes they tortured me so for I've got a particular skin | B2 |
| I do think it's the gnats coming out of the ponds that drives the poor suicides in | B2 |
| And after all an't there new laid eggs to be had upon Holborn Hill | C2 |
| And dairy fed pork in Broad St Giles's and fresh butter wherever you will | C2 |
| And a covered cart that brings Cottage Bread quite rustical like and brown | B |
| So one isn't so very uncountrified in the very heart of the town | B |
| Howsomever my mind's made up and although I'm sure cousin Giles will be vext | Z |
| I mean to book me an inside place up to town upon Saturday next | Z |
| And if nothing happens soon after ten I shall be at the Old Bell and Crown | B |
| And perhaps I may come to the country again when London is all burnt down | B |
Thomas Hood
(1)
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