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