Iii.—1
Are there, approved of later times,Whose verse adorn'd a tyrant's crimes?Who saw majestic Rome betray'd,And lent the imperial ruffian aid?Alas! not one polluted bard,No, not the strains that Mincius heard,Or Tibur's hills replied,Dare to the Muse's ear aspire;Save that, instructed by the Grecian lyre,With Freedom's ancient notes their shameful task they hide.
Words in this poem
- aspire v. t.
- To aspire to; to long for; to try to reach; to mount to.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Iii.—1 is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Mark Akenside, Project Gutenberg ebook #9814; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mark Akenside, Iii.—1, in The Poetical Works of Mark Akenside (1744), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9814, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/akenside-poems/iii-1-3.html, id L09519.
Form and metre
Iii.—1 is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.7 syllables.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABB--CDDC timesA · crimesA · betray'dB · aidB · bard · heard · repliedC · aspireD · lyreD · hideC
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Are there, approved of later times, | 9 | ··˘/˘·/˘· |
| Whose verse adorn'd a tyrant's crimes? | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Who saw majestic Rome betray'd, | 8 | ··˘/˘·˘/ |
| And lent the imperial ruffian aid? | 10 | ···˘/˘˘/˘· |
| Alas! not one polluted bard, | 8 | ˘/··˘/˘· |
| No, not the strains that Mincius heard, | 8 | ········ |
| Or Tibur's hills replied, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Dare to the Muse's ear aspire; | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Save that, instructed by the Grecian lyre, | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| With Freedom's ancient notes their shameful task they hide. | 12 | ·/˘/˘··/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.