Magnanimity
"To the will of the people we loyally bow!"That's the minority shibboleth now.O noble antagonists, answer me flat--What would you do if you didn't do that?
Words in this poem
- loyally adv.
- In a loyal manner; faithfully.
- minority n.
- The state of being a minor, or under age. [Cf. F. minorité. See Minor, a. & n.]
- shibboleth n.
- A word which was made the criterion by which to distinguish the Ephraimites from the Gileadites. The Ephraimites, not being able to pronounce sh, called the word sibboleth. See Judges xii. [Heb. shibboleth an ear of corn, or a stream, a flood.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Magnanimity 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, Magnanimity, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/magnanimity.html, id L28000.
Form and metre
Magnanimity is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 AABB bowA · nowA · flatB · thatB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "To the will of the people we loyally bow!" | 11 | ·····/˘·/˘· |
| That's the minority shibboleth now. | 10 | ··˘/˘˘/˘·· |
| O noble antagonists, answer me flat-- | 10 | ·/˘˘/˘/˘·· |
| What would you do if you didn't do that? | 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.