An Epistle To An Afflicted Protestant Lady In France Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJK LLDDMNOOKKPPQERRSSTT UVWWGGXXYY| Madam A stranger's purpose in these lays | A |
| Is to congratulate and not to praise | A |
| To give the creature the Creator's due | B |
| Were sin in me and an offence to you | B |
| From man to man or e'en to woman paid | C |
| Praise is the medium of a knavish trade | C |
| A coin by craft for folly's use design'd | D |
| Spurious and only current with the blind | D |
| The path of sorrow and that path alone | E |
| Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown | E |
| No traveller ever reach'd that blest abode | F |
| Who found not thorns and briers in his road | F |
| The world may dance along the flowery plain | G |
| Cheer'd as they go by many a sprightly strain | G |
| Where Nature has her mossy velvet spread | H |
| With unshod feet they yet securely tread | H |
| Admonish'd scorn the caution and the friend | I |
| Bent all on pleasure heedless of its end | I |
| But He who knew what human hearts would prove | J |
| How slow to learn the dictates of his love | K |
| That hard by nature and of stubborn will | L |
| A life of ease would make them harder still | L |
| In pity to the souls his grace design'd | D |
| To rescue from the ruins of mankind | D |
| Call'd for a cloud to darken all their years | M |
| And said Go spend them in the vale of tears | N |
| O balmy gales of soul reviving air | O |
| O salutary streams that murmur there | O |
| These flowing from the fount of grace above | K |
| Those breathed from lips of everlasting love | K |
| The flinty soil indeed their feet annoys | P |
| Chill blasts of trouble nip their springing joys | P |
| An envious world will interpose its frown | Q |
| To mar delights superior to its own | E |
| And many a pang experienced still within | R |
| Reminds them of their hated inmate Sin | R |
| But ills of every shape and every name | S |
| Transform'd to blessings miss their cruel aim | S |
| And every moment's calm that soothes the breast | T |
| Is given in earnest of eternal rest | T |
| Ah be not sad although thy lot be cast | U |
| Far from the flock and in a boundless waste | V |
| No shepherd's tents within thy view appear | W |
| But the chief Shepherd even there is near | W |
| Thy tender sorrows and thy plaintive strain | G |
| Flow in a foreign land but not in vain | G |
| Thy tears all issue from a source divine | X |
| And every drop bespeaks a Saviour thine | X |
| So once in Gideon's fleece the dews were found | Y |
| And drought on all the drooping herbs around | Y |
William Cowper
(1)
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