Cologne
In Kohln, a town of monks and bones,And pavements fang'd with murderous stones,And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches;I counted two and seventy stenches,All well denned, and several stinks!Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,The river Rhine, it is well known,Doth wash your city of Cologne;But tell me, Nymphs! what power divineShall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
Words in this poem
- cologne n.
- A perfumed liquid, composed of alcohol and certain aromatic oils, used in the toilet; -- called also cologne water and eau de cologne. [Originally made in Cologne, the French name of Köln, a city in Germany.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- henceforth adv.
- From this time forward; henceforward.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Cologne is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Coleridge, Project Gutenberg ebook #8208; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Cologne, in Poems of Coleridge (1796–1817), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8208, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coleridge-poems/cologne.html, id L00379.
Form and metre
Cologne is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.3 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 10% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AABBCCDDEE bonesA · stonesA · wenchesB · stenchesB · stinksC · sinksC · knownD · cologneD · divineE · rhineE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In Kohln, a town of monks and bones, | 8 | ········ |
| And pavements fang'd with murderous stones, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches; | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| I counted two and seventy stenches, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| All well denned, and several stinks! | 8 | ···˘·/˘· |
| Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks, | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| The river Rhine, it is well known, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Doth wash your city of Cologne; | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| But tell me, Nymphs! what power divine | 8 | ·····/˘/ |
| Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine? | 8 | ·//··/˘· |
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.