The University Feud.[1] Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCDDDC EEEFGGGF HHHIJJJI KKLLMMNNN OCNNPPPPNNPPFFNNNNQQ RREENNGGNNNN SSTTNNFFUUVVNNWWXXNN NN YYZZNNNNNNAANNA2B2C2 C2NN NNAANNHHNNNN YYD2D2NNJJCCNNNNNNA plague o' both the houses MERCUTIO | A |
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As latterly I chanced to pass | B |
A Public House from which alas | B |
The Arms of Oxford dangle | C |
My ear was startled by a din | D |
That made me tremble in my skin | D |
A dreadful hubbub from within | D |
Of voices in a wrangle | C |
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Voices loud and voices high | E |
With now and then a party cry | E |
Such as used in times gone by | E |
To scare the British border | F |
When foes from North and South of Tweed | G |
Neighbors and of Christian creed | G |
Met in hate to fight and bleed | G |
Upsetting Social Order | F |
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Surprised I turn'd me to the crowd | H |
Attracted by that tumult loud | H |
And ask'd a gazer beetle brow'd | H |
The cause of such disquiet | I |
When lo the solemn looking man | J |
First shook his head on Burleigh's plan | J |
And then with fluent tongue began | J |
His version of the riot | I |
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A row why yes a pretty row you might hear from this to Garmany | K |
And what is worse it's all got up among the Sons of Harmony | K |
The more's the shame for them as used to be in time and tune | L |
And all unite in chorus like the singing birds in June | L |
Ah many a pleasant chant I've heard in passing here along | M |
When Swiveller was President a knocking down a song | M |
But Dick's resign'd the post you see and all them shouts and hollers | N |
Is 'cause two other candidates some sort of larned scholars | N |
Are squabbling to be Chairman of the Glorious Apollers | N |
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Lord knows their names I'm sure I don't no more than any yokel | O |
But I never heard of either as connected with the vocal | C |
Nay some do say although of course the public rumor varies | N |
They've no more warble in 'em than a pair of hen canaries | N |
Though that might pass if they were dabs at t'other sort of thing | P |
For a man may make a song you know although he cannot sing | P |
But lork it's many folk's belief they're only good at prosing | P |
For Catnach swears he never saw a verse of their composing | P |
And when a piece of poetry has stood its public trials | N |
If pop'lar it gets printed off at once in Seven Dials | N |
And then about all sorts of streets by every little monkey | P |
It's chanted like the Dog's Meat Man or If I had a Donkey | P |
Whereas as Mr Catnach says and not a bad judge neither | F |
No ballad worth a ha'penny has ever come from either | F |
And him as writ Jim Crow he says and got such lots of dollars | N |
Would make a better Chairman for the Glorious Apollers | N |
Howsomever that's the meaning of the squabble that arouses | N |
This neighborhood and quite disturbs all decent Heads of Houses | N |
Who want to have their dinners and their parties as is reason | Q |
In Christian peace and charity according to the season | Q |
But from Number Thirty Nine since this electioneering job | R |
Ay as far as Number Ninety there's an everlasting mob | R |
Till the thing is quite a nuisance for no creature passes by | E |
But he gets a card a pamphlet or a summut in his eye | E |
And a pretty noise there is what with canvassers and spouters | N |
For in course each side is furnish'd with its backers and its touters | N |
And surely among the Clergy to such pitches it is carried | G |
You can hardly find a Parson to get buried or get married | G |
Or supposing any accident that suddenly alarms | N |
If you're dying for a surgeon you must fetch him from the Arms | N |
While the Schoolmasters and Tooters are neglecting of their scholars | N |
To write about a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers | N |
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Well that sir is the racket and the more the sin and shame | S |
Of them that help to stir it up and propagate the same | S |
Instead of vocal ditties and the social flowing cup | T |
But they'll be the House's ruin or the shutting of it up | T |
With their riots and their hubbubs like a garden full of bears | N |
While they've damaged many articles and broken lots of squares | N |
And kept their noble Club Room in a perfect dust and smother | F |
By throwing Morning Heralds Times and Standards at each other | F |
Not to name the ugly language Gemmen oughtn't to repeat | U |
And the names they call each other for I've heard 'em in the street | U |
Such as Traitors Guys and Judasses and Vipers and what not | V |
For Pasley and his divers ain't so blowing up a lot | V |
And then such awful swearing for there's one of them that cusses | N |
Enough to shock the cads that hang on opposition 'busses | N |
For he cusses every member that's agin him at the poll | W |
As I wouldn't cuss a donkey tho' it hasn't got a soul | W |
And he cusses all their families Jack Harry Bob or Jim | X |
To the babby in the cradle if they don't agree with him | X |
Whereby altho' as yet they have not took to use their fives | N |
Or according as the fashion is to sticking with their knives | N |
I'm bound they'll be some milling yet and shakings by the collars | N |
Afore they choose a Chairman for the Glorious Apollers | N |
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To be sure it is a pity to be blowing such a squall | Y |
Instead of clouds and every man his song and then his call | Y |
And as if there wasn't Whigs enough and Tories to fall out | Z |
Besides polities in plenty for our splits to be about | Z |
Why a cornfield is sufficient sir as anybody knows | N |
For to furnish them in plenty who are fond of picking crows | N |
Not to name the Maynooth Catholics and other Irish stews | N |
To agitate society and loosen all its screws | N |
And which all may be agreeable and proper to their spheres | N |
But it's not the thing for musicals to set us by the ears | N |
And as to College larning my opinion for to broach | A |
And I've had it from my cousin and he driv a college coach | A |
And so knows the University and all as there belongs | N |
And he says that Oxford's famouser for sausages than songs | N |
And seldom turns a poet out like Hudson that can chant | A2 |
As well as make such ditties as the Free and Easies want | B2 |
Or other Tavern Melodists I can't just call to mind | C2 |
But it's not the classic system for to propagate the kind | C2 |
Whereby it so may happen as that neither of them Scholars | N |
May be the proper Chairman for the Glorious Apollers | N |
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For my part in the matter if so be I had a voice | N |
It's the best among the vocalists I'd honor with the choice | N |
Or a Poet as could furnish a new Ballad to the bunch | A |
Or at any rate the surest hand at mixing of the punch | A |
'Cause why the members meet for that and other tuneful frolics | N |
And not to say like Muffincaps their Catichiz and Collec's | N |
But you see them there Itinerants that preach so long and loud | H |
And always takes advantage like the prigs of any crowd | H |
Have brought their jangling voices and as far as they can compass | N |
Have turn'd a tavern shindy to a seriouser rumpus | N |
And him as knows most hymns altho' I can't see how it follers | N |
They want to be the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers | N |
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Well that's the row and who can guess the upshot after all | Y |
Whether Harmony will ever make the Arms her House of call | Y |
Or whether this here mobbing as some longish heads foretell it | D2 |
Will grow to such a riot that the Oxford Blues must quell it | D2 |
Howsomever for the present there's no sign of any peace | N |
For the hubbub keeps a growing and defies the New Police | N |
But if I was in the Vestry and a leading sort of Man | J |
Or a Member of the Vocals to get backers for my plan | J |
Why I'd settle all the squabble in the twinkle of a needle | C |
For I'd have another candidate and that's the Parish Beadle | C |
Who makes such lots of Poetry himself or else by proxy | N |
And no one never has no doubts about his orthodoxy | N |
Whereby if folks was wise instead of either of them Scholars | N |
And straining their own lungs along of contradictious hollers | N |
They'll lend their ears to reason and take my advice as follers | N |
Namely Bumble for the Chairman of the Glorious Apollers | N |
Thomas Hood
(1)
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