English Pronunciation in a Very Large Nutshell

This was apparently written by a 19th century Dutchman:
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, Suzy, 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, gush, bush and break and bleak,
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,
Typhoid; measles, topsails, aisles;
Exiles, similes, reviles;
Wholly, holly; signal, signing;
Thames; examining, combining;
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Host, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
My oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing-bowing, banjo-tuners,
In their yachts or their canoes;
Puise, truism; use, to use.
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual.
Seat, sweat; chaste, castle; leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut, granite and unite.
Reefer does not rhyme with ?'deafer',
Feoffer does, zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George; ate, late;
Hint, pint; senate, sedate;
Scenic, 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,
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
And enamour rhyme with ?'hammer',
Pus*y, hussy and posess,
Desert, but dessert, address.
Golf, wolf; countenance, lieutenants
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.
River, rival; tomb, bomb, comb;
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Soul, but foul and gaunt, but aunt;
Font, front, wont; want, grand and grant.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Scholar, vicar and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.
From ?'desire': desirable - admirable from ?'admire';
Lumber, plumber; bier, but brier.
Chatham, brougham; renown but known,
Knowledge; done, but gone and 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, broach, 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 like parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad;
Toward, to forward, to reward.
Ricocheted and croqueting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation is O.K.
Rounded, wounded; grieve and sieve;
Friend and fiend; alive and live;
Liberty, library; heave and heaven;
Rachel, ache, moustache; eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed;
People, leopard; towed but vowed.
Sally with aly; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess, it's not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph!
Heron; granary, canary,
Crevice and device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, but grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, 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;
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne; cork, work.
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, gunwhale,
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, pough, cough, hough or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of ?'cup'...
My advice is:GIVE IT UP!