Everyday Characters V - Portrait Of A Lady Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AB CBDBEFEF GFGFEBEB HI JEJ KLKLMNMO PFPFQFQF RFRFSTST UEUEVBVB TTTTTTTT FWFWXWXW TTTTTLTL TTTTLELE YTYTZTZT A2TA2TLFLF B2LB2LC2TC2T

IN THE EXHIBITION OP THE ROYALA
ACADEMYB
-
-
What are you Lady nought is hereC
To tell us of your name or storyB
To claim the gazer's smile or fearD
To dub you Whig or damn you ToryB
It is beyond a poet's skillE
To form the slightest notion whetherF
We e'er shall walk through one quadrilleE
Or look upon one moon togetherF
-
You're very pretty all the worldG
Are talking of your bright brow's splendourF
And of your locks so softly curledG
And of your hands so white and slenderF
Some think you 're blooming in BengalE
Some say you're blowing in the cityB
Some know you 're nobody at allE
I only feel you're very prettyB
-
But bless my heart it 's very wrongH
You 're making all our belles ferociousI
Anne 'never saw a chin so long '-
And Laura thinks your dress 'atrocious '-
And Lady Jane who now and thenJ
Is taken for the village steepleE
Is sure you can't be four feet tenJ
And 'wonders at the taste of people '-
-
Soon pass the praises of a faceK
Swift fades the very best vermillionL
Fame rides a most prodigious paceK
Oblivion follows on the pillionL
And all who in these sultry roomsM
To day have stared and pushed and faintedN
Will soon forget your pearls and plumesM
As if they never had been paintedO
-
You'll be forgotten as old debtsP
By persons who are used to borrowF
Forgotten as the sun that setsP
When shines a new one on the morrowF
Forgotten like the luscious peachQ
That blessed the schoolboy last SeptemberF
Forgotten like a maiden speechQ
Which all men praise but none rememberF
-
Yet ere you sink into the streamR
That whelms alike sage saint and martyrF
And soldier's sword and minstrel's themeR
And Canning's wit and Gatton's charterF
Here of the fortunes of your youthS
My fancy weaves her dim conjecturesT
Which have perhaps as much of truthS
As passion's vows or Cobbett's lecturesT
-
Was 't in the north or in the southU
That summer breezes rocked your cradleE
And had you in your baby mouthU
A wooden or a silver ladleE
And was your first unconscious sleepV
By Brownie banned or blessed by FairyB
And did you wake to laugh or weepV
And were you christened Maud or MaryB
-
And was your father called 'your grace'T
And did he bet at Ascot racesT
And did he chat at commonplaceT
And did he fill a score of placesT
And did your lady mother's charmsT
Consist in picklings broilings bastingsT
Or did she prate about the armsT
Her brave forefathers wore at HastingsT
-
Where were you finished tell me whereF
Was it at Chelsea or at ChiswickW
Had you the ordinary shareF
Of books and backboard harp and physicW
And did they bid you banish prideX
And mind your Oriental tintingW
And did you learn how Dido diedX
And who found out the art of printingW
-
And are you fond of lanes and brooksT
A votary of the sylvan MusesT
Or do you con the little booksT
Which Baron Brougham and Vaux diffusesT
Or do you love to knit and sewT
The fashionable world's ArachneL
Or do you canter down the RowT
Upon a very long tailed hackneyL
-
And do you love your brother JamesT
And do you pet his mares and settersT
And have your friends romantic namesT
And do you write them long long lettersT
And are you since the world beganL
All women are a little spitefulE
And don't you dote on MalibranL
And don't you think Tom Moore delightfulE
-
I see they've brought you flowers to dayY
Delicious food for eyes and nosesT
But carelessly you turn awayY
From all the pinks and all the rosesT
Say is that fond look sent in searchZ
Of one whose look as fondly answersT
And is he fairest in the ChurchZ
Or is he ain't he in the LancersT
-
And is your love a motley pageA2
Of black and white half joy half sorrowT
Are you to wait till you 're of ageA2
Or are you to be his to morrowT
Or do they bid you in their scornL
Your pure and sinless flame to smotherF
Is he so very meanly bornL
Or are you married to anotherF
-
Whate'er you are at last adieuB2
I think it is your bounden dutyL
To let the rhymes I coin for youB2
Be prized by all who prize your beautyL
From you I seek nor gold nor fameC2
From you I fear no cruel stricturesT
I wish some girls that I could nameC2
Were half as silent as their picturesT

Winthrop Mackworth Praed



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