To Lady Carteret

Jonathan Swift 1667 (Dublin) – 1745 (Ireland)



FROM India's burning clime I'm brought,
With cooling gales like zephyrs fraught.
Not Iris, when she paints the sky,
Can show more different hues than I;
Nor can she change her form so fast,
I'm now a sail, and now a mast.
I here am red, and there am green,
A beggar there, and here a queen.
I sometimes live in house of hair,
And oft in hand of lady fair.
I please the young, I grace the old,
And am at once both hot and cold.
Say what I am then, if you can,
And find the rhyme, and you're the man.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

32 sec read
30

Quick analysis:

Scheme AABBCCDDEEFFGG
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 493
Words 105
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. more…

All Jonathan Swift poems | Jonathan Swift Books

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    "To Lady Carteret" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/24339/to-lady-carteret>.

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