A Pickbrain
What! imitate me, friend? Suppose that youWith agony and difficulty doWhat I do easily--what then? You've gotA style I heartily wish I had not.If I from lack of sense and you from choiceGrieve the judicious and the unwise rejoice,No equal censure our deserts will suit--We both are fools, but you're an ape to boot!
Words in this poem
- judicious a.
- Of or relating to a court; judicial. [F. judicieux, fr. L. judicium judgment. See Judicial.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Pickbrain is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shapes of Clay (1903), Project Gutenberg ebook #12658; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ambrose Bierce, A Pickbrain, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/a-pickbrain.html, id L28164.
Form and metre
A Pickbrain is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
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 AABBCCDD youA · doA · gotB · notB · choiceC · rejoiceC · suitD · bootD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| What! imitate me, friend? Suppose that you | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| With agony and difficulty do | 10 | ·/˘˘·/˘·˘· |
| What I do easily--what then? You've got | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| A style I heartily wish I had not. | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| If I from lack of sense and you from choice | 10 | ·········· |
| Grieve the judicious and the unwise rejoice, | 11 | ··˘/˘··˘/˘/ |
| No equal censure our deserts will suit-- | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘/·· |
| We both are fools, but you're an ape to boot! | 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.