An Epitaph Vpon Doctor Brooke
A Brooke, whose streame so great, so good,Was lov'd, was honour'd, as a flood:Whose bankes the Muses dwelt upon,More than their owne Helicon;Here at length, hath gladly foundA quiet passage under ground;Meane while his loved bankes, now dryThe Muses with their teares supply.
Words in this poem
- helicon n.
- A mountain in Boeotia, in Greece, supposed by the Greeks to be the residence of Apollo and the Muses.
- gladly adv.
- Preferably; by choice. [From Glad, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
An Epitaph Vpon Doctor Brooke is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Works of Richard Crashaw, Volume I, Project Gutenberg ebook #38549; 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 Crashaw, An Epitaph Vpon Doctor Brooke, in Steps to the Temple and Other Poems (1646–1652), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38549, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/crashaw-poems/an-epitaph-vpon-doctor-brooke.html, id L12107.
Form and metre
An Epitaph Vpon Doctor Brooke is 8 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 91%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 25% 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 AABBCCDD goodA · floodA · uponB · heliconB · foundC · groundC · dryD · supplyD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A Brooke, whose streame so great, so good, | 8 | ········ |
| Was lov'd, was honour'd, as a flood: | 8 | ········ |
| Whose bankes the Muses dwelt upon, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| More than their owne Helicon; | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Here at length, hath gladly found | 7 | ····/˘· |
| A quiet passage under ground; | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Meane while his loved bankes, now dry | 7 | ······· |
| The Muses with their teares supply. | 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.