Iii.—2
Ye heroes, who of oldDid generous England Freedom's throne ordain;From Alfred's parent reignTo Nassau, great deliverer, wise and bold;I know your perils hard,Your wounds, your painful marches, wintry seas,The night estranged from ease,The day by cowardice and falsehood vex'd,The head with doubt perplex'd,The indignant heart disdaining the reward,
Words in this poem
- generous a.
- Of honorable birth or origin; highborn. [F. généreux, fr. L. generous of noble birth, noble, excellent, magnanimous, fr. genus birth, race: cf. It. generoso. See 2d Gender.]
- deliverer n.
- One who delivers or rescues; a preserver.
- wintry a.
- Suitable to winter; resembling winter, or what belongs to winter; brumal; hyemal; cold; stormy; wintery. [AS. wintrig.]
- indignant a.
- Affected with indignation; wrathful; passionate; irate; feeling wrath, as when a person is exasperated by unworthy or unjust treatment, by a mean action, or by a degrading accusation. [L. indignans, -antis, p. pr. of indignari to be indignant, disdain. See Indign.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Iii.—2 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.—2, in The Poetical Works of Mark Akenside (1744), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9814, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/akenside-poems/iii-2-4.html, id L09526.
Form and metre
Iii.—2 is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 60% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 ABBA-CCDD- oldA · ordainB · reignB · boldA · hard · seasC · easeC · vex'dD · perplex'dD · reward
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Ye heroes, who of old | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Did generous England Freedom's throne ordain; | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| From Alfred's parent reign | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| To Nassau, great deliverer, wise and bold; | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘··· |
| I know your perils hard, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Your wounds, your painful marches, wintry seas, | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| The night estranged from ease, | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| The day by cowardice and falsehood vex'd, | 10 | ···/˘˘·/·· |
| The head with doubt perplex'd, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| The indignant heart disdaining the reward, | 11 | ·˘/˘·˘/˘·˘/ |
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.