Interlude III
Bookseller. Poetry has been called a sister-art both to Painting and toMusic; I wish to know, what are the particulars of their relationship?
When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive,And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind;Which she with pretty and with swimming gate,Following her womb, (then rich with my young squire),Would imitate, and sail upon the land.
2/4 A | river or a sea |Was to him a dish | of tea,And a king | dom bread and butter.
B. You mentioned the greater length of the verses of Homer and Virgil.Had not these poets great advantage in the superiority of their languagescompared to our own?
Pale Melancholy sits, and round her throwsA death-like silence, and a dread repose.Pope's Abelard.
But round the steepy rocks and dangerous strandRolls the white surf, and SHIPWRECK guards the land.
Words in this poem
- bookseller n.
- One who sells books.
- womb n.
- The belly; the abdomen. [OE. wombe, wambe, AS. wamb, womb; akin to D. wam belly, OS. & OHG. wamba, G. wamme, wampe, Icel. vömb, Sw. v&mb, Dan. vom, Goth. wamba.]
- steepy a.
- Steep; precipitous.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Interlude III is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Botanic Garden. Part 2, Containing the Loves of the Plants. A Poem. With Philosophical Notes., Project Gutenberg ebook #10671; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Erasmus Darwin, Interlude III, in The Botanic Garden, Part II: The Loves of the Plants (1789), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10671, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/darwin-loves-of-plants/interlude-iii.html, id L23543.
Form and metre
Interlude III is 18 lines in 6 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%).
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.
- 5 AA- throwsA · reposeA · abelard
- 6 AA strandA · landA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Bookseller. Poetry has been called a sister-art both to Painting and to | 18 | /·˘/˘····/˘···/˘·· |
| Music; I wish to know, what are the particulars of their relationship? | 18 | /˘·······˘/˘··˘/˘· |
| When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Which she with pretty and with swimming gate, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Following her womb, (then rich with my young squire), | 10 | /˘········ |
| Would imitate, and sail upon the land. | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| 2/4 A | river or a sea | | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Was to him a dish | of tea, | 7 | ······· |
| And a king | dom bread and butter. | 8 | ······/˘ |
| B. You mentioned the greater length of the verses of Homer and Virgil. | 18 | ··/˘·/˘···/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| Had not these poets great advantage in the superiority of their languages | 19 | ···/˘·˘/˘···˘/˘··/˘ |
| compared to our own? | 6 | ˘/·/˘· |
| Pale Melancholy sits, and round her throws | 10 | ·/˘·˘····· |
| A death-like silence, and a dread repose. | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Pope's Abelard. | 4 | ·/˘˘ |
| But round the steepy rocks and dangerous strand | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Rolls the white surf, and SHIPWRECK guards the land. | 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.