Analysis of An Expostulation to Lord King
How can you, my Lord, thus delight to torment all
The Peers of realm about cheapening their corn,
When you know, if one hasn't a very high rental,
'Tis hardly worth while being very high born?
Why bore them so rudely, each night of your life,
On a question, my Lord, there's so much to abhor in?
A question - like asking one, "How is your wife?" --
At once so confounded domestic and foreign.
As to weavers, no matter how poorly they feast;
But Peers, and such animals, fed up for show,
(Like the well-physick'd elephant, lately deceas'd,)
Take wonderful quantum of cramming, you know.
You might see, my dear Baron, how bor'd and distrest
Were their high noble hearts by your merciless tale,
When the force of the agony wrung even a jest
From the frugal Scotch wit of my Lord L-d-d-le!
Bright Peer! to whom Nature and Berwickshire gave
A humour, endow'd with effects so provoking,
That, when the whole House looks unusually grave,
You may always conclude that Lord L-d-d-le's joking!
And then, those unfortunate weavers of Perth -
Not to know the vast difference Providence dooms
Between weavers of Perth and Peers of high birth,
'Twixt those who have heir-looms, and those who've but looms!
"To talk now of starving!" - as great Ath-l said --
(and nobles all cheer'd, and the bishops all wonder'd,)
"When, some years ago, he and others had fed
Of these same hungry devils about fifteen hundred!"
It follows from hence - and the Duke's very words
Should be publish'd wherever poor rogues of this craft are --
That weavers,once rescued from starving by Lords,
Are bound to be starved by said Lords ever after.
When Rome was uproarious, her knowing patricians
Made "Bread and the Circus" a cure for each row;
But not so the plan of our noble physicians,
"No Bread and the Tread-mill" 's the regimen now.
So cease, my dear Baron of Ockham, your prose,
As I shall my poetry -- neither convinces;
And all we have spoken and written but show,
When you tread on a nobleman's corn, how he winces.
Scheme | XAXA BXBX CDCD CXXX EFEF GHGH IXIX XXXX JDJX XXDH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (40%) |
Metre | 11111101111 01110110011 1111110010110 11011101011 11111011111 1010111111010 01011011111 111010010010 111011011011 11011001111 10111001001 11001011011 11111101101 011101111001 1011010011001 1010111111110 111110011 01011011010 11011101001 1110111111110 01101001011 111011001001 01101101111 11111101011 11111011111 010110010110 11101101011 1111010010110 11011001101 1110010111111 111011011 111111111010 1111010010 11001001111 1110111010010 110011101001 1111101111 111110010010 01111001011 111101001111 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,957 |
Words | 364 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 40 |
Letters per line (avg) | 38 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 152 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 36 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 30, 2023
- 1:52 min read
- 128 Views
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"An Expostulation to Lord King" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/36810/an-expostulation-to-lord-king>.
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