An Elegy, To An Old Beauty Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCC DDEEFF GGHHIIJK LLMNOOPP QQRRSS TTNNUUVV QQWWXXYY RRQQQQHH BBQQQQZZII| In vain poor Nymph to please our youthful sight | A |
| You sleep in cream and frontlets all the night | A |
| Your face with patches soil with paint repair | B |
| Dress with gay gowns and shade with foreign hair | B |
| If truth in spight of manners must be told | C |
| Why really fifty five is something old | C |
| - | |
| Once you were young or one whose life's so long | D |
| She might have born my mother tells me wrong | D |
| And once since Envy's dead before you die | E |
| The women own you play'd a sparkling eye | E |
| Taught the light foot a modish little trip | F |
| And pouted with the prettiest purple lip | F |
| - | |
| To some new charmer are the roses fled | G |
| Which blew to damask all thy cheek with red | G |
| Youth calls the Graces there to fix their reign | H |
| And airs by thousands fill their easy train | H |
| So parting Summer bids her flow'ry prime | I |
| Attend the sun to dress some foreign clime | I |
| While with'ring seasons in succession here | J |
| Strip the gay gardens and deform the year | K |
| - | |
| But thou since Nature bids the world resign | L |
| 'Tis now thy daughter's daughter's time to shine | L |
| With more address or such as pleases more | M |
| She runs her female exercises o'er | N |
| Unfurls or closes raps or turns the Fan | O |
| And smiles or blushes at the creature Man | O |
| With quicker life as guilded coaches pass | P |
| In sideling courtesy she drops the glass | P |
| - | |
| With better strength on visit days she bears | Q |
| To mount her fifty flights of ample stairs | Q |
| Her mein her shape her temper eyes and tongue | R |
| Are sure to conquer for the rogue is young | R |
| And all that's madly wild or oddly gay | S |
| We call it only pretty Fanny's way | S |
| - | |
| Let time that makes you homely make you sage | T |
| The sphere of wisdom is the sphere of age | T |
| 'Tis true when beauty dawns with early fire | N |
| And hears the flatt'ring tongues of soft desire | N |
| If not from virtue from its gravest ways | U |
| The soul with pleasing avocation strays | U |
| But beauty gone 'tis easier to be wise | V |
| As harper better by the loss of eyes | V |
| - | |
| Henceforth retire reduce your roving airs | Q |
| Haunt less the plays and more the publick pray'rs | Q |
| Reject the Mechlin Head and gold brocade | W |
| Go pray in sober Norwich Crape array'd | W |
| Thy pendent diamonds let thy Fanny take | X |
| Their trembling lustre shows how much you shake | X |
| Or bid her wear thy necklace row'd with pearl | Y |
| You'll find your Fanny an obedient girl | Y |
| - | |
| So for the rest with less incumbrance hung | R |
| You walk thro' life unmingled with the young | R |
| And view the shade and substance as you pass | Q |
| With joint endeavour trifling at the glass | Q |
| Or Folly drest and rambling all her days | Q |
| To meet her counterpart and grow by praise | Q |
| Yet still sedate your self and gravely plain | H |
| You neither fret nor envy at the vain | H |
| - | |
| 'Twas thus if Man with Woman we compare | B |
| The wise Athenian crost a glittering fair | B |
| Unmov'd by tongues and sights he walk'd the place | Q |
| Thro' tape toys tinsel gimp perfume and lace | Q |
| Then bends from Mars's Hill his awful eyes | Q |
| And What a world I never want he cries | Q |
| But cries unheard For Folly will be free | Z |
| So parts the buzzing gaudy crowd and he | Z |
| As careless he for them as they for him | I |
| He wrapt in wisdom and they whirl'd by whim | I |
Thomas Parnell
(1)
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