For man's support I came at first from earth, But man perverts the purpose of my birth; Beneath his plastic hand new forms I take, And either sex my services partake; The flowing lawn in stricter folds I hold, And bind in chains unseen each swelling fold; The band beneath the double chin I grace, And formal plaits that edge the Quaker's face: By me great Bess, who used her maids to cuff, Shone in the dignity of full-quilled ruff. -- Such is my whole; -- but, parted and disjoined, New wonders in my varying form you'll find. What makes the cit look big with conscious worth; What bursts from pale surprise or boisterous mirth; The sweep Rialto forms, or your fair brow -- The fault to youthful valour we allow; A word by which possession we denote, A letter high in place and first in note; What guards the beauty from the scorching ray; What little master first is taught to say; Great Nature's rival, handmaid, sometimes foe; The most pathetic counterpart of "Oh!" The whiskered pilferer and her foe demure; The lamps unbought which light the houseless poor; What bore famed heroes through the ranks of war; What's heard when falls from high the ponderous jar; What holy Paul did at Gamaliel's feet -- What Bavius writes, what schoolboys love to eat; Of eager gamesters what decides the fate; The homely rough support of Britain's state; What, joined to "been," is fatal to a toast; What guards the sailor from the shelving coast; The stage whence villains make their last harangue; What in your head and bones gives many a pang; What introduces long-tailed similes; A preposition that to place agrees; A stately animal in forests bred, A tree that lifts on high its lofty head; What best unbinds the weary student's mind; A beauteous fish in northern lakes we find; A grateful blemish on a soldier's breast: -- All these are in my single name exprest. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ROBINSON CRUSOE by MOTHER GOOSE ARIEL'S SONG (1) [OR, DIRGE] [OR, A SEA DIRGE]. FR. THE TEMPEST by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A FINE DAY ON LOUGH SWILLY by WILLIAM ALEXANDER (1824-1911) WOULD I KNEW! by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM THE WATERS OF H. BAPTISME by JOSEPH BEAUMONT PSALM 51 by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE THE BONNIE LAD THAT'S FAR AWAY by ROBERT BURNS |