The Chaos

Partial text

These lines are set out as in the author's version, with alternate couplets indented and the problematic words italicised.

Dearest creature in Creation,
Studying English pronunciation,

I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.

It will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;

Tear in eye your dress you'll tear.
So shall I! Oh, 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 break, steak, but bleak and streak,

Previous, precious; fuchsia, via;
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,

Cloven, oven; how and low;
Script, receipt; shoe, poem, toe,

Hear me say devoid of trickery,
daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

[...]

Finally: which rhymes with "enough,"
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?

Hiccough has the sound of "cup"......
My advice is—give it up!