The Chaos

 

Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation,

      I will teach you in my verse

      Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Susy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

      Tear in eye, your dress you’ll tear,

      Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer,

Pray, console your loving poet,

Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!

      Just compare heart, beard and heard,

      Dies  and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it's written);

      Made has not the sound of bade;

      Say, said, pay, paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as vague and ague,

      But be careful how you speak,

      Say gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,

Recipe, pipe, studding-sail , choir.

      Woven, oven, how and low,

      Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery:

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

      Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,

      Exiles, similes, reviles,

Wholly, holly, signal, signing,

Same examining, but mining,

      Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

      Solar, mica, war and far.

From “desire”: desirable – admirable from “admire”;

Lumber, plumber, bier but brier,

      Topsham, brougham, renown but known,

      Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,

One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,

      Gertrude, German, wind and mind;

      Scene, Melpomene, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,

Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.

      This phonetic labyrinth

      Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Billet does not end like ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

      Blood and flood are not like food,

      Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet ,

Which exactly rhymes with khaki.

      Discount, viscount, load and broad,

      Toward, to forward, to reward.

Ricocheted and croqueting, croquet ?

Right! Your pronunciation's O.K.;

      Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

      Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your r correct in higher?

Keats asserts it rhymes with Thalia;

      Hugh but hug and hood but hoot,

      Buoyant, minute but minute.

Do you know the book of Joshua?

Are you fond of it? Of course you are.

      Would it tally with my rhyme

      If I mentioned paradigm?

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,

But cease, greasy, grease and greasy.

      Venice, nice, valise, revise,

      Rabies but lullabies.

Would you like some more? You’ll have it:

David, affidavit, davit,

      Calico but caliph. Sheik

      Has the sound of Czech or ache.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

      We say hallowed but allowed,

      People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,

Between mover, plover, Dover,

      Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

      Chalice but police and lice.

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label,

      Petal, penal and canal,

      Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit

Rhyme with “shirk it” and “beyond it”,

      But it is not hard to tell,

      Why it’s pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,

Timber, climber, bullion, lion,

      Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,

      Senator, spectator, mayor.

Ivy, privy, famous. Clamour

Has the a of drachm and “hammer”,

      Pussy, hussy and possess,

      Desert but desert, address.

Golf, wolf, countenance; lieutenants

Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.

      Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,

      Cow but Cowper, some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

      Soul but foul, gaunt but aunt:

      Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Arsenic, specific, scenic,

Relic, rhetoric, hygienic,

      Gooseberry, goose, and close but close,

      Paradise, rise, rose and dose.

Say inveigh, neigh but inveigle,

Make the latter rhyme with eagle,

      Mind! Meandering but mean,

      Serpentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,

You say mani(-fold) like many,

      Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,

      Tier (one who ties), but tier.

Arch archangel! Pray, does erring

Rhyme with herring, or with stirring?

      Prison, bison, treasure-trove,

      Treason, hover, cover, cove.

Perseverance, severance. Ribald,

Rhymes (but piebald doesn’t) with nibbled.

      Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat , gnaw,

      Lien, phthistic, shone, bone, pshaw.

Don’t be down, my own, but rough it,

And distinguish buffet – buffet;

      Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, stool,

      Worcester, Boleyn, foul and ghoul.

With an accent pure and sterling,

You say year, but some say yearling;

      Evil devil, mezzotint,

      Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)

Now you need not pay attention

To such sounds as I don’t mention,

      Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,

      Rhyming with the pronoun yours :

Nor are proper names included,

Though I often heard, as you did,

      Funny rhymes to unicorn,

      Yes, you know them: Vaughan and Strachan.

No, my maiden, fair and comely,

I don’t want to speak of Cholmondeley,

      No. Yet Froude, compared with proud,

      Is no better than Macleod.

But mind trivial and vial,

Tripod, menial, denial,

      Troll and trolley, realm and ream,

      Schedule, mischief, schism and scheme.

Argil , gill, Argyle, gill. Surely

May be made to rhyme with Raleigh ,       

      But you surely must not say:

      Piquet  rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid

Worthless documents? How pallid,

      How uncouth he, couchant, looked,

      When for Portsmouth I had booked!

Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,

Paramour enamoured, flighty!

      Episodes, antipodes,

      Acquiesce and obsequies.

Pious, impious, limb, climb, comely,

Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,

      Conquer, conquest, breathed, breathed, fan,

      Wan, Sedan and artisan.

The th will surely trouble you

More than r, ch, or w,

      May then these poetic gems:

      Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames,

Thomson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,

– There are more, but I forget ’em –

      Wait! I’ve got it: Anthony,

      Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit

Does not rhyme with eight – you see it;

      With  and forthwith : one has voice,

      One has not; you make your choice.

Shoes, goes, does . Now first say finger, 

Then say: singer, ginger, linger,

      Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

      Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.

Hero, heron, query, very,

Parry, tarry, fury, bury,

      Dost , lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.

      Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.

Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,

Bowing, bowing banjo-tuners!

      Yachts you know, but noes, canoes,

      Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seem little,

We say actual but victual.

      Refer does not rhyme with deafer.

      Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late.

Hint, pint, senate but sedate;

      Gaelic, Arabic, Pacific,

      Science, conscience, scientific.

Tour but our and succour, four,

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

      Sea, idea, guinea, area,

      Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

      Compare alien with Italian,

      Dandelion with battalion.

Rally with ally; yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.

      Say aver, but ever, fever,

      Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

Never guess – it is not safe:

We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph .

      Starry, granary, canary.

      Crevice and device and eyrie .

Face, but preface, but grimace.

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

      Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,

      Ought, out, joust and scour but scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with “here”, but “ere”.

      Seven is right, but so is even,

      Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp, desmesne, cork and work.

      A of valour, vapid, vapour,

      S of news (compare newspaper),

G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,

I of antichrist and grist

      Differ, like diverse and divers,

      Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers,

Once but nonce, toll, doll but roll,

Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

      Pronunciation – think of psyche! –

      Is a paling stout and spikey;

Won't it make you lose your wits,

Writing “groats” and saying groats ?

      It's a dark abyss or tunnel:

      Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

      Don’t you think so, reader, rather,

      Saying lather, bather, father?

Finally: which rhymes with “enough”,

Though, through, plough, cough, hough or tough?

      Hiccough has the sound of “sup” . . .

      My advice is – give it up!

 

There are 1281 words in the poem: 666 of them are italicised.