The Valediction Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDEFFGGHHIIHHBB JJKLMMNNJOPPQQRRSTJJ JJJJUUJJJJVVWWXXJJJJ YZA2A2SSAAQB2YZJJC2C 2JJJJSSJJD2D2RRJJJJE 2E2F2F2JJFarewell false hearts whose best affections fail | A |
Like shallow brooks which summer suns exhale | A |
Forgetful of the man whom once ye chose | B |
Cold in his cause and careless of his woes | B |
I bid you both a long and last adieu | C |
Cold in my turn and unconcerned like you | C |
First farewell Niger whom now duly proved | D |
I disregard as much as I have loved | E |
Your brain well furnished and your tongue well taught | F |
To press with energy your ardent thought | F |
Your senatorial dignity of face | G |
Sound sense intrepid spirit manly grace | G |
Have raised you high as talents can ascend | H |
Made you a peer but spoilt you for a friend | H |
Pretend to all that parts have e'er acquired | I |
Be great be feared be envied be admired | I |
To fame as lasting as the earth pretend | H |
But not hereafter to the name of friend | H |
I sent you verse and as your lordship knows | B |
Backed with a modest sheet of humble prose | B |
Not to recall a promise to your mind | J |
Fulfilled with ease had you been so inclined | J |
But to comply with feelings and to give | K |
Proof of an old affection still alive | L |
Your sullen silence serves at least to tell | M |
Your altered heart and so my lord farewell | M |
Next busy actor on a meaner stage | N |
Amusement monger of a trifling age | N |
Illustrious histrionic patentee | J |
Terentius once my friend farewell to thee | O |
In thee some virtuous qualities combine | P |
To fit thee for a nobler post than thine | P |
Who born a gentleman hast stooped too low | Q |
To live by buskin sock and raree show | Q |
Thy schoolfellow and partner of thy plays | R |
When Nichol swung the birch and twined the bays | R |
And having known thee bearded and full grown | S |
The weekly censor of a laughing town | T |
I thought the volume I presumed to send | J |
Graced with the name of a long absent friend | J |
Might prove a welcome gift and touch thine heart | J |
Not hard by nature in a feeling part | J |
But thou it seems what cannot grandeur do | J |
Though but a dream art grown disdainful too | J |
And strutting in thy school of queens and kings | U |
Who fret their hour and are forgotten things | U |
Hast caught the cold distemper of the day | J |
And like his lordship cast thy friend away | J |
O Friendship cordial of the human breast | J |
So little felt so fervently professed | J |
Thy blossoms deck our unsuspecting years | V |
The promise of delicious fruit appears | V |
We hug the hopes of constancy and truth | W |
Such is the folly of our dreaming youth | W |
But soon alas detect the rash mistake | X |
That sanguine inexperience loves to make | X |
And view with tears the expected harvest lost | J |
Decayed by time or withered by a frost | J |
Whoever undertakes a friend's great part | J |
Should be renewed in nature pure in heart | J |
Prepared for martyrdom and strong to prove | Y |
A thousand ways the force of genuine love | Z |
He may be called to give up health and gain | A2 |
To exchange content for trouble ease for pain | A2 |
To echo sigh for sigh and groan for groan | S |
And wet his cheeks with sorrows not his own | S |
The heart of man for such a task too frail | A |
When most relied on is most sure to fail | A |
And summoned to partake its fellow's woe | Q |
Starts from its office like a broken bow | B2 |
Votaries of business and of pleasure prove | Y |
Faithless alike in friendship and in love | Z |
Retired from all the circles of the gay | J |
And all the crowds that bustle life away | J |
To scenes where competition envy strife | C2 |
Beget no thunder clouds to trouble life | C2 |
Let me the charge of some good angel find | J |
One who has known and has escaped mankind | J |
Polite yet virtuous who has brought away | J |
The manners not the morals of the day | J |
With him perhaps with her for men have known | S |
No firmer friendships than the fair have shown | S |
Let me enjoy in some unthought of spot | J |
All former friends forgiven and forgot | J |
Down to the close of life's fast fading scene | D2 |
Union of hearts without a flaw between | D2 |
'Tis grace 'tis bounty and it calls for praise | R |
If God give health that sunshine of our days | R |
And if he add a blessing shared by few | J |
Content of heart more praises still are due | J |
But if he grant a friend that boon possessed | J |
Indeed is treasure and crowns all the rest | J |
And giving one whose heart is in the skies | E2 |
Born from above and made divinely wise | E2 |
He gives what bankrupt nature never can | F2 |
Whose noblest coin is light and brittle man | F2 |
Gold purer far than Ophir ever knew | J |
A soul an image of himself and therefore true | J |
William Cowper
(1)
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