Iii.—2
Great citizen of Albion! TheeHeroic Valour still attends,And useful Science, pleased to seeHow Art her studious toil extends:While Truth, diffusing from on highA lustre unconfined as day,Fills and commands the public eye;Till, pierced and sinking by her powerful ray,Tame Faith and monkish Awe, like nightly demons, fly.
Words in this poem
- albion n.
- An ancient name of England, still retained in poetry. [Prob. from the same root as Gael. alp a height or hill. "It may have been bestowed on the land lying behind the white cliffs visible from the coast of Gaul. Alb]
- lustre n.
- A period of five years; a lustrum. [L. lustrum: cf. F. lustre.]
- monkish a.
- Like a monk, or pertaining to monks; monastic; as, monkish manners; monkish dress; monkish solitude.
- nightly a.
- Of or pertaining to the night, or to every night; happening or done by night, or every night; as, nightly shades; he kept nightly vigils.
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.html, id L09506.
Form and metre
Iii.—2 is 9 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABABCDCDC. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.1 syllables. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABABCDCDC theeA · attendsB · seeA · extendsB · highC · dayD · eyeC · rayD · flyC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Great citizen of Albion! Thee | 9 | ·/˘˘·/˘˘· |
| Heroic Valour still attends, | 8 | ˘/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And useful Science, pleased to see | 9 | ·/˘/˘·˘·· |
| How Art her studious toil extends: | 9 | ···/˘˘·˘/ |
| While Truth, diffusing from on high | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| A lustre unconfined as day, | 9 | ·/˘·˘/˘·· |
| Fills and commands the public eye; | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| Till, pierced and sinking by her powerful ray, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Tame Faith and monkish Awe, like nightly demons, fly. | 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.