Analysis of Acknowledgement

Major Henry Livingston Jr. 1748 (Poughkeepsie, Province of New York) – 1828 (Poughkeepsie, New York)



With the ladies' permission, most humbly I'd mention
How much we're obliged by all their attention;
We sink with the weight of the huge obligation
Too long & too broad to admit compensation.
For us (and I blush while I speak I declare)
The charming enchanters be-torture their hair
Till gently it rises and swells like a knoll
Thirty inches at least from the dear little poll;
From the tip-top of which all peer out together
The ribband, the gause & the ostrich's feather;
Composing a sight for an Arab to swear at
Or huge Patagonian a fortnight to stare at.

Then hoops at right angles that hang from ye knees
And hoops at the hips in connection with these
Set the fellows's presumptuous who court an alliance
And ev'ry pretender at awful defiance.

And I have been told (though I must disbelieve
For the tidings as fact I would never receive)
That billets of cork have supplied the place
Of something the Fair-ones imagine a grace;
But whether 'tis placed behind or before,
The shoulders to swell or the bosom to shoar,
To raise a false wen or expand a false bump
Project a false hip or protrude a false rump,
Was never ascertain'd, and fegs I declare
To make more enquiry I never will dare.


Scheme AAAABBCCDDEE FFGG HHIIXBJJBB
Poetic Form
Metre 1010010110110 11101111010 11101101010 1111101010 11011111101 01001011011 11011001101 101011101101 101111111010 01010110 010011110111 11010001111 11111011111 01101001011 1010100111010 01010110010 01111111001 101011111001 1101110101 11001101001 1101101101 01011101011 11011101011 10011101011 1100101101 111111011
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,177
Words 219
Sentences 5
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 12, 4, 10
Lines Amount 26
Letters per line (avg) 36
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 315
Words per stanza (avg) 72
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:07 min read
52

Major Henry Livingston Jr.

Henry Beekman Livingston Jr. has been proposed as being the uncredited author of the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas, more popularly known (after its first line) as The Night Before Christmas. more…

All Major Henry Livingston Jr. poems | Major Henry Livingston Jr. Books

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