On a Great Election
The accursèd power which stands on Privilege(And goes with Women, and Champagne and Bridge)Broke--and Democracy resumed her reign:(Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne).
Words in this poem
- champagne n.
- A light wine, of several kinds, originally made in the province of Champagne, in France. [F. See Champaign.]
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On a Great Election is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #60663; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Hilaire Belloc, On a Great Election, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/on-a-great-election.html, id L21721.
Form and metre
On a Great Election is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 privilegeA · bridgeA · reignB · champagneB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The accursèd power which stands on Privilege | 9 | ···/···/˘ |
| (And goes with Women, and Champagne and Bridge) | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Broke--and Democracy resumed her reign: | 9 | ··˘/˘˘/·· |
| (Which goes with Bridge, and Women and Champagne). | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
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.