A Tale
Near the high road upon a winding streamAn honest Miller rose to Wealth and Fame:The noblest Virtues cheer'd his lengthen'd days,And all the Country echo'd with his praise:His Wife, the Doctress of the neighb'ring Poor,to have possest such a blessing, and feel at this moment what it is tolose it by death. C.L.Drew constant pray'rs and blessings round his door.
Words in this poem
- wealth n.
- Weal; welfare; prosperity; good. [OE. welthe, from wele; cf. D. weelde luxury. See Weal prosperity.]
- doctress n.
- A female doctor.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Tale is in the public domain. This text is taken from Rural Tales, Ballads, and Songs, Project Gutenberg ebook #9093; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Bloomfield, A Tale, in Rural Tales, Ballads and Songs (1802), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #9093, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bloomfield-tales/a-tale.html, id L09684.
Form and metre
A Tale is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.5 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 --AA---- stream · fame · daysA · praiseA · poor · to · — · door
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Near the high road upon a winding stream | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| An honest Miller rose to Wealth and Fame: | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| The noblest Virtues cheer'd his lengthen'd days, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| And all the Country echo'd with his praise: | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| His Wife, the Doctress of the neighb'ring Poor, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| to have possest such a blessing, and feel at this moment what it is to | 18 | ··/˘··/˘····/˘···· |
| lose it by death. C.L. | 6 | ······ |
| Drew constant pray'rs and blessings round his door. | 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.