The Harp the Monarch Minstrel Swept I
The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept,leThe King of men, the loved of Heaven!Which Music hallowed while she weptO'er tones her heart of hearts had given--Redoubled be her tears, its chords are riven!It softened men of iron mould,It gave them virtues not their own;No ear so dull, no soul so cold,That felt not--fired not to the tone,Till David's Lyre grew mightier than his Throne!
Words in this poem
- mould n.
- Crumbling, soft, friable earth; esp., earth containing the remains or constituents of organic matter, and suited to the growth of plants; soil. [OE. molde, AS. molde; akin to D. mul, G. mull, mulm, OHG. molt, molta, Icel. mold, Dan. muld, Sw. mull, Goth. mulda, and E. meal flour. See Meal, and cf. Mole a]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Harp the Monarch Minstrel Swept I is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 3, Project Gutenberg ebook #21811; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lord Byron, The Harp the Monarch Minstrel Swept I, in The Giaour, and Other Poems (1816), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21811, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-works-3/the-harp-the-monarch-minstrel-swept-i.html, id L23936.
Form and metre
The Harp the Monarch Minstrel Swept I is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ---AABCBCC swept,le · heaven · wept · givenA · rivenA · mouldB · ownC · coldB · toneC · throneC
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept,le | 9 | ···/·/˘·· |
| The King of men, the loved of Heaven! | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Which Music hallowed while she wept | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| O'er tones her heart of hearts had given-- | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Redoubled be her tears, its chords are riven! | 11 | ˘/˘······/˘ |
| It softened men of iron mould, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| It gave them virtues not their own; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| No ear so dull, no soul so cold, | 8 | ········ |
| That felt not--fired not to the tone, | 8 | ···/···· |
| Till David's Lyre grew mightier than his Throne! | 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.