On Returning a Newspaper
Your News and Review, sir.I’ve read through and through, sir,With little admiring or blaming;The Papers are barrenOf home-news or foreign,No murders or rapes worth the naming.
Our friends, the Reviewers,Those chippers and hewers,Are judges of mortar and stone, sir;But of meet or unmeet,In a fabric complete,I’ll boldly pronounce they are none, sir;
My goose-quill too rude isTo tell all your goodnessBestow’d on your servant, the Poet;Would to God I had oneLike a beam of the sun,And then all the world, sir, should know it!
Words in this poem
- admiring a.
- Expressing admiration; as, an admiring glance.
- unmeet a.
- Not meet or fit; not proper; unbecoming; unsuitable; -- usually followed by for.
- boldly adv.
- In a bold manner. [AS. bealdlice.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On Returning a Newspaper is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns, Project Gutenberg ebook #1279; 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 Burns, On Returning a Newspaper, in Poems and Songs (1786–1796), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1279, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/burns-poems/on-returning-a-newspaper.html, id L03158.
Form and metre
On Returning a Newspaper is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is anapaestic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%). 80% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.1 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 22% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic dimeter.
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 AAB--B sirA · sirA · blamingB · barren · foreign · namingB
- 2 AABCCB reviewersA · hewersA · sirB · unmeetC · completeC · sirB
- 3 --ABBA is · goodness · poetA · oneB · sunB · itA
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 anapaestic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Your News and Review, sir. | 6 | ····/· |
| I’ve read through and through, sir, | 6 | ······ |
| With little admiring or blaming; | 9 | ·/˘˘/˘·/˘ |
| The Papers are barren | 6 | ·/˘·/˘ |
| Of home-news or foreign, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| No murders or rapes worth the naming. | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| Our friends, the Reviewers, | 7 | /˘··˘/˘ |
| Those chippers and hewers, | 6 | ·/˘·/˘ |
| Are judges of mortar and stone, sir; | 9 | ·/˘·/˘··· |
| But of meet or unmeet, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| In a fabric complete, | 6 | ··/˘˘/ |
| I’ll boldly pronounce they are none, sir; | 9 | ·/˘˘/···· |
| My goose-quill too rude is | 6 | ······ |
| To tell all your goodness | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Bestow’d on your servant, the Poet; | 9 | ˘/··/˘·/˘ |
| Would to God I had one | 6 | ······ |
| Like a beam of the sun, | 6 | ······ |
| And then all the world, sir, should know it! | 9 | ········· |
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.