Taste
The bodie's life with meats and ayre is fed,Therefore the soule doth vse the tasting power,In veines, which through the tongue and palate spred,Distinguish euery relish, sweet and sower.
This is the bodie's nurse; but since man's witFound th' art of cookery, to delight his sense;More bodies are consum'd and kild with it,Then with the sword, famine, or pestilence.
Words in this poem
- sower n.
- One who, or that which, sows.
- famine n.
- General scarcity of food; dearth; a want of provisions; destitution. [F. famine, fr. L. fames hunger; cf. Gr. hani loss, lack, ha to leave.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Taste is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies. Volume 1 of 2., Project Gutenberg ebook #44977; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Davies, Taste, in The Complete Poems, Volume I (1596–1599), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #44977, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/davies-poems/taste.html, id L08754.
Form and metre
Taste is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.4 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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.
- 2 ABAB witA · senseB · itA · pestilenceB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The bodie's life with meats and ayre is fed, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Therefore the soule doth vse the tasting power, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| In veines, which through the tongue and palate spred, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Distinguish euery relish, sweet and sower. | 11 | ˘/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| This is the bodie's nurse; but since man's wit | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Found th' art of cookery, to delight his sense; | 11 | ···/˘˘·˘/·· |
| More bodies are consum'd and kild with it, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| Then with the sword, famine, or pestilence. | 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.