Versicles on Sign-Posts
His face with smile eternal drest,Just like the Landlord’s to his Guest’s,High as they hang with creaking din,To index out the Country Inn.He looked just as your sign-post Lions do,With aspect fierce, and quite as harmless too.
A head, pure, sinless quite of brain and soul,The very image of a barber’s Poll;It shews a human face, and wears a wig,And looks, when well preserv’d, amazing big.
Words in this poem
- sinless a.
- Free from sin. Piers Plowman.
- barber n.
- One whose occupation it is to shave or trim the beard, and to cut and dress the hair of his patrons. Barber's itch. See under Itch. [OE. barbour, OF. barbeor, F. barbier, as if fr. an assumed L. barbator, fr. barba beard. See 1st Barb.]
- amazing a.
- Causing amazement; very wonderful; as, amazing grace.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Versicles on Sign-Posts 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, Versicles on Sign-Posts, in Poems and Songs (1786–1796), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1279, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/burns-poems/versicles-on-sign-posts.html, id L03153.
Form and metre
Versicles on Sign-Posts is 10 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.2 syllables.
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 --AABB drest · guest's · dinA · innA · doB · tooB
- 2 AABB soulA · pollA · wigB · bigB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| His face with smile eternal drest, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Just like the Landlord’s to his Guest’s, | 8 | ···/···· |
| High as they hang with creaking din, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To index out the Country Inn. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| He looked just as your sign-post Lions do, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| With aspect fierce, and quite as harmless too. | 10 | ·/·····/˘· |
| A head, pure, sinless quite of brain and soul, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The very image of a barber’s Poll; | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| It shews a human face, and wears a wig, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And looks, when well preserv’d, amazing big. | 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.