The Devil Among The Scholars, A Fragment Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDDAA EEFFAAAAGGAAHHIJKKLL MNOOAAPPGGAAAAIIAAAA AAQROOSSGTAACCIICCSS AASSSSTTAASSUU GGAAVVGGAAOO AATTIIAAIIOOAACCIITT II AAIIAAUUTTSSCCSSAAAA AAAAAABut whither have these gentle ones | A |
These rosy nymphs and black eyed nuns | A |
With all of Cupid's wild romancing | B |
Led by truant brains a dancing | B |
Instead of studying tomes scholastic | C |
Ecclesiastic or monastic | C |
Off I fly careering far | D |
In chase of Pollys prettier far | D |
Than any of their namesakes are | D |
The Polymaths and Polyhistors | A |
Polyglots and all their sisters | A |
- | |
So have I known a hopeful youth | E |
Sit down in quest of lore and truth | E |
With tomes sufficient to confound him | F |
Like Tohu Bohu heapt around him | F |
Mamurra stuck to Theophrastus | A |
And Galen tumbling o'er Bombastus | A |
When lo while all that's learned and wise | A |
Absorbs the boy he lifts his eyes | A |
And through the window of his study | G |
Beholds some damsel fair and ruddy | G |
With eyes as brightly turned upon him as | A |
The angel's were on Hieronymus | A |
Quick fly the folios widely scattered | H |
Old Homer's laureled brow is battered | H |
And Sappho headlong sent flies just in | I |
The reverend eye of St Augustin | J |
Raptured he quits each dozing sage | K |
Oh woman for thy lovelier page | K |
Sweet book unlike the books of art | L |
Whose errors are thy fairest part | L |
In whom the dear errata column | M |
Is the best page in all the volume | N |
But to begin my subject rhyme | O |
'Twas just about this devilish time | O |
When scarce there happened any frolics | A |
That were not done by Diabolics | A |
A cold and loveless son of Lucifer | P |
Who woman scorned nor saw the use of her | P |
A branch of Dagon's family | G |
Which Dagon whether He or She | G |
Is a dispute that vastly better is | A |
Referred to Scaliger et coeteris | A |
Finding that in this cage of fools | A |
The wisest sots adorn the schools | A |
Took it at once his head Satanic in | I |
To grow a great scholastic manikin | I |
A doctor quite as learned and fine as | A |
Scotus John or Tom Aquinas | A |
Lully Hales Irrefragabilis | A |
Or any doctor of the rabble is | A |
In languages the Polyglots | A |
Compared to him were Babelsots | A |
He chattered more than ever Jew did | Q |
Sanhedrim and Priest included | R |
Priest and holy Sanhedrim | O |
Were one and seventy fools to him | O |
But chief the learned demon felt a | S |
Zeal so strong for gamma delta | S |
That all for Greek and learning's glory | G |
He nightly tippled Graeco more | T |
And never paid a bill or balance | A |
Except upon the Grecian Kalends | A |
From whence your scholars when they want tick | C |
Say to be Attic's to be on tick | C |
In logics he was quite Ho Panu | I |
Knew as much as ever man knew | I |
He fought the combat syllogistic | C |
With so much skill and art eristic | C |
That though you were the learned Stagyrite | S |
At once upon the hip he had you right | S |
In music though he had no ears | A |
Except for that amongst the spheres | A |
Which most of all as he averred it | S |
He dearly loved 'cause no one heard it | S |
Yet aptly he at sight could read | S |
Each tuneful diagram in Bede | S |
And find by Euclid's corollaria | T |
The ratios of a jig or aria | T |
But as for all your warbling Delias | A |
Orpheuses and Saint Cecilias | A |
He owned he thought them much surpast | S |
By that redoubted Hyaloclast | S |
Who still contrived by dint of throttle | U |
Where'er he went to crack a bottle | U |
- | |
Likewise to show his mighty knowledge he | G |
On things unknown in physiology | G |
Wrote many a chapter to divert us | A |
Like that great little man Albertus | A |
Wherein he showed the reason why | V |
When children first are heard to cry | V |
If boy the baby chance to be | G |
He cries O A if girl O E | G |
Which are quoth he exceeding fair hints | A |
Respecting their first sinful parents | A |
Oh Eve exclaimeth little madam | O |
While little master cries Oh Adam | O |
- | |
But 'twas in Optics and Dioptrics | A |
Our daemon played his first and top tricks | A |
He held that sunshine passes quicker | T |
Through wine than any other liquor | T |
And though he saw no great objection | I |
To steady light and clear reflection | I |
He thought the aberrating rays | A |
Which play about a bumper's blaze | A |
Were by the Doctors looked in common on | I |
As a more rare and rich phenomenon | I |
He wisely said that the sensorium | O |
Is for the eyes a great emporium | O |
To which these noted picture stealers | A |
Send all they can and meet with dealers | A |
In many an optical proceeding | C |
The brain he said showed great good breeding | C |
For instance when we ogle women | I |
A trick which Barbara tutored him in | I |
Although the dears are apt to get in a | T |
Strange position on the retina | T |
Yet instantly the modest brain | I |
Doth set them on their legs again | I |
- | |
Our doctor thus with stuft sufficiency | A |
Of all omnigenous omnisciency | A |
Began as who would not begin | I |
That had like him so much within | I |
To let it out in books of all sorts | A |
Folios quartos large and small sorts | A |
Poems so very deep and sensible | U |
That they were quite incomprehensible | U |
Prose which had been at learning's Fair | T |
And bought up all the trumpery there | T |
The tattered rags of every vest | S |
In which the Greeks and Romans drest | S |
And o'er her figure swollen and antic | C |
Scattered them all with airs so frantic | C |
That those who saw what fits she had | S |
Declared unhappy Prose was mad | S |
Epics he wrote and scores of rebuses | A |
All as neat as old Turnebus's | A |
Eggs and altars cyclopaedias | A |
Grammars prayer books oh 'twere tedious | A |
Did I but tell thee half to follow me | A |
Not the scribbling bard of Ptolemy | A |
No nor the hoary Trismegistus | A |
Whose writings all thank heaven have missed us | A |
E'er filled with lumber such a wareroom | A |
As this great porcus literarum | A |
Thomas Moore
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
<< Cupid And Psyche Poem
The Fudges In England. Letter Vi. From Miss Biddy Fudge, To Mrs. Elizabeth ---- Poem>>
Write your comment about The Devil Among The Scholars, A Fragment poem by Thomas Moore
Best Poems of Thomas Moore