A Poetical Epistle To Lady Austen Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJ KLMMIINNOOPPQQRRSSTT AAUUOOCCNNCCOOVVCCCC WWXXYYZZA2OOOCCCCBBB 2B2C2C2D2D2E2E2F2F2G 2G2B2B2CCCCIIE2E2E2H 2I2E2J2

Dear Anna Between friend and friendA
Prose answers every common endA
Serves in a plain and homely wayB
To express the occurrence of the dayB
Our health the weather and the newsC
What walks we take what books we chooseC
And all the floating thoughts we findD
Upon the surface of the mindD
But when a poet takes the penE
Far more alive than other menE
He feels a gentle tingling comeF
Down to his finger and his thumbF
Derived from nature's noblest partG
The centre of a glowing heartG
And this is what the world who knowsH
No flights above the pitch of proseH
His more sublime vagaries slightingI
Denominates an itch for writingI
No wonder I who scribble rhymeJ
To catch the triflers of the timeJ
And tell them truths divine and clearK
Which couched in prose they will not hearL
Who laboured hard to allure and drawM
The loiterers I never sawM
Should feel that itching and that tinglingI
With all my purpose interminglingI
To your intrinsic merit trueN
When called to address myself to youN
Mysterious are His ways whose powerO
Brings forth that unexpected hourO
When minds that never met beforeP
Shall meet unite and part no moreP
It is the allotment of the skiesQ
The hand of the Supremely WiseQ
That guides and governs our affectionsR
And plans and orders our connectionsR
Directs us in our distant roadS
And marks the bounds of our abodeS
Thus we were settled when you found usT
Peasants and children all around usT
Not dreaming of so dear a friendA
Deep in the abyss of Silver EndA
Thus Martha even against her willU
Perched on the top of yonder hillU
And you though you must needs preferO
The fairer scenes of sweet SancerreO
Are come from distant Loire to chooseC
A cottage on the banks of OuseC
This page of Providence quite newN
And now just opening to our viewN
Employs our present thoughts and painsC
To guess and spell what it containsC
But day by day and year by yearO
Will make the dark enigma clearO
And furnish us perhaps at lastV
Like other scenes already pastV
With proof that we and our affairsC
Are part of a Jehovah's caresC
For God unfolds by slow degreesC
The purport of his deep decreesC
Sheds every hour a clearer lightW
In aid of our defective sightW
And spreads at length before the soulX
A beautiful and perfect wholeX
Which busy man's inventive brainY
Toils to anticipate in vainY
Say Anna had you never grownZ
The beauties of a rose full blownZ
Could you though luminous your eyeA2
By looking on the bud descryO
Or guess with a prophetic powerO
The future splendour of the flowerO
Just so the Omnipotent who turnsC
The system of a world's concernsC
From mere minutiae can educeC
Events of most important useC
And bid a dawning sky displayB
The blaze of a meridian dayB
The works of man tend one and allB2
As needs they must from great to smallB2
And vanity absorbs at lengthC2
The monuments of human strengthC2
But who can tell how vast the planD2
Which this day's incident beganD2
Too small perhaps the slight occasionE2
For our dim sighted observationE2
It passed unnoticed as the birdF2
That cleaves the yielding air unheardF2
And yet may prove when understoodG2
A harbinger of endless goodG2
Not that I deem or mean to callB2
Friendship a blessing cheap or smallB2
But merely to remark that oursC
Like some of nature's sweetest flowersC
Rose from a seed of tiny sizeC
That seemed to promise no such prizeC
A transient visit interveningI
And made almost without a meaningI
Hardly the effect of inclinationE2
Produced a friendship then begunE2
That has cemented us in oneE2
And placed it in our power to proveH2
By long fidelity and loveI2
That Solomon has wisely spokenE2
'A threefold cord is not soon broken 'J2

William Cowper



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