What is the meter and rhyme scheme of Jonathan Swift's poem, "Description of the Morning?"

Jonathan Swift's poem, "Description of the Morning" takes the traditional pastoral genre of the "aubade" or "morning song" which usually describes lovers meeting or parting at dawn in a pastoral environment and transfers it to the streets of London, where Betty, a servant, departs from her master's bed and others begin their day's work or end their illicit night time activities.

The basic rhythmical scheme of the poem is iambic pentameter, although there are several...

Jonathan Swift's poem, "Description of the Morning" takes the traditional pastoral genre of the "aubade" or "morning song" which usually describes lovers meeting or parting at dawn in a pastoral environment and transfers it to the streets of London, where Betty, a servant, departs from her master's bed and others begin their day's work or end their illicit night time activities.

The basic rhythmical scheme of the poem is iambic pentameter, although there are several metrical variations, including "trochaic substitutions" or "inversions" such as the one found in the initial foot of:

Duns at his lordship's gate began to meet ...

The rhyme scheme is AABBCC, or what are called "couplets" with lines rhymed in pairs. When lines of iambic pentameter are rhymed in couplets, the meter is called "heroic couplets."

The poem thus can be described as eighteen lines of iambic pentameter rhymed as couplets or as nine heroic couplets.