Novum Organum
In Bacon see the culminating primeOf Anglo-Saxon intellect and crime.He dies and Nature, settling his affairs,Parts his endowments among us, his heirs:To every one a pinch of brain for seed,And, to develop it, a pinch of greed.Each thrifty heir, to make the gift suffice,Buries the talent to manure the vice.
Words in this poem
- settling n.
- The act of one who, or that which, settles; the act of establishing one's self, of colonizing, subsiding, adjusting, etc.
- greed n.
- An eager desire or longing; greediness; as, a greed of gain. [Akin to Goth. grdus hunger, Icel. graedhr. sq. root34. See Greedy.]
- suffice v. i.
- To be enough, or sufficient; to meet the need (of anything); to be equal to the end proposed; to be adequate. [OE. suffisen, OF. soufire, F. suffire (cf. suffisant, p.pr.), L. sufficere to put under, to substitute, to avail for, to suffice; sub under + facere to make. Se]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Novum Organum 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, Novum Organum, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/novum-organum.html, id L27976.
Form and metre
Novum Organum 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 90%).
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 primeA · crimeA · affairsB · heirsB · seedC · greedC · sufficeD · viceD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In Bacon see the culminating prime | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘· |
| Of Anglo-Saxon intellect and crime. | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| He dies and Nature, settling his affairs, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Parts his endowments among us, his heirs: | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| To every one a pinch of brain for seed, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And, to develop it, a pinch of greed. | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| Each thrifty heir, to make the gift suffice, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Buries the talent to manure the vice. | 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.