Mock Panegyric on a Young Friend

Jane Austen 1775 (Steventon Rectory, Hampshire) – 1817 (Winchester, Hampshire)



In measured verse I'll now rehearse
The charms of lovely Anna:
And, first, her mind is unconfined
Like any vast savannah.

Ontario's lake may fitly speak
Her fancy's ample bound:
Its circuit may, on strict survey
Five hundred miles be found.

Her wit descends on foes and friends
Like famed Niagara's fall;
And travellers gaze in wild amaze,
And listen, one and all.

Her judgment sound, thick, black, profound,
Like transatlantic groves,
Dispenses aid, and friendly shade
To all that in it roves.

If thus her mind to be defined
America exhausts,
And all that's grand in that great land
In similes it costs --

Oh how can I her person try
To image and portray?
How paint the face, the form how trace,
In which those virtues lay?

Another world must be unfurled,
Another language known,
Ere tongue or sound can publish round
Her charms of flesh and bone.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

47 sec read
69

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCB XDED XFXF DXXA CXXX XEXE XGDG
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 850
Words 152
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. more…

All Jane Austen poems | Jane Austen Books

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