On Mr. Rice, the Manciple of Christ-Church in Oxford
Who can doubt, Rice, but to th’ eternall placeThy soule is fledd, that did but know thy face?Whose body was soe light, it might have goneTo heav’ne without a resurrection.Indeed thou wert all type; thy limmes were signes,Thy arteryes but mathematicke lines:As if two soules had made thy compound good,That both should live by faith, and none by blood.
Words in this poem
- eternall a.
- Without beginning or end of existence; always existing. [F. éternel, L. aeternalis, fr. aeternus. See Etern.]
- resurrection n.
- A rising again; the resumption of vigor. [F. résurrection, L. resurrectio, fr. resurgere, resurrectum, to rise again; pref. re- re- + surgere to rise. See Source.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On Mr. Rice, the Manciple of Christ-Church in Oxford is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Richard Corbet, late bishop of Oxford and of Norwich 4th edition, Project Gutenberg ebook #65375; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Richard Corbet, On Mr. Rice, the Manciple of Christ-Church in Oxford, in Poems (1647), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #65375, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/corbet-poems/on-mr-rice-the-manciple-of-christ-church-in-oxford.html, id L08908.
Form and metre
On Mr. Rice, the Manciple of Christ-Church in Oxford is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBCCDD placeA · faceA · goneB · resurrectionB · signesC · linesC · goodD · bloodD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Who can doubt, Rice, but to th’ eternall place | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| Thy soule is fledd, that did but know thy face? | 10 | ·········· |
| Whose body was soe light, it might have gone | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| To heav’ne without a resurrection. | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| Indeed thou wert all type; thy limmes were signes, | 10 | ˘/········ |
| Thy arteryes but mathematicke lines: | 10 | ·/˘˘······ |
| As if two soules had made thy compound good, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| That both should live by faith, and none by blood. | 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.