The Lier
Thou in the fields walkst out thy supping howers,And yet thou swear'st thou hast supp'd like a king:Like Nebuchadnezar perchance with grass and flowers,A sallet worse then Spanish dieting.
Words in this poem
- supping n.
- The act of one who sups; the act of taking supper.
- hast
- , 2d pers. sing. pres. of. Fave, contr. of havest.
- sallet n.
- A light kind of helmet, with or without a visor, introduced during the 15th century. [F. salade, Sp. celada, or It. celata, fr. L. (cassis) caelata, fr. caelare, caelatum, to engrave in relief. So called from the figures engraved upon it.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Lier is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of John Donne, Volume 1 (of 2) Edited from the Old Editions and Numerous Manuscripts, Project Gutenberg ebook #48688; 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 Donne, The Lier, in Poems (1633), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #48688, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/donne-poems/the-lier.html, id L04918.
Form and metre
The Lier is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 10.8 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 ABAB howersA · kingB · flowersA · dietingB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Thou in the fields walkst out thy supping howers, | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| And yet thou swear'st thou hast supp'd like a king: | 10 | ·········· |
| Like Nebuchadnezar perchance with grass and flowers, | 12 | ······˘/···/ |
| A sallet worse then Spanish dieting. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘˘ |
Notes from the edition 2
Herbert Grierson's record of the readings of the early editions and manuscripts, from his Poems of John Donne (Oxford, 1912; Project Gutenberg #48688).
- Line 2 swear'st HN, W: say'st B, Cy, O'F
- Line 3 grass] hearbes Bur
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