Envoi
Speed, flippant rhymes, throughout the land;Disperse yourselves with patient zeal!Go, perch upon the critic's hand,Just after he has had a meal.But should he still unfriendly be,Unperch and hasten back to me.
O gentle maid, O happy boy,This copy of my book is done;But don't forget that I enjoyA royalty on ev'ry one;Just think how wealthy I should be,If you would purchase two or three!
Words in this poem
- flippant a.
- Of smooth, fluent, and rapid speech; speaking with ease and rapidity; having a voluble tongue; talkative. [Prov. E. flip to move nimbly; cf. W. llipa soft, limber, pliant, or Icel. fleipa to babble, prattle. Cf. Flip, Fillip, Flap, Flipper.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Envoi is in the public domain. This text is taken from Verse and Worse, Project Gutenberg ebook #36702; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Harry Graham, Envoi, in Verse and Worse (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36702, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/graham-verse-and-worse/envoi.html, id L23359.
Form and metre
Envoi is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABCC. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See 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 ABABCC landA · zealB · handA · mealB · beC · meC
- 2 ABABCC boyA · doneB · enjoyA · oneB · beC · threeC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Speed, flippant rhymes, throughout the land; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Disperse yourselves with patient zeal! | 8 | ˘/˘/·/˘· |
| Go, perch upon the critic's hand, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Just after he has had a meal. | 8 | ········ |
| But should he still unfriendly be, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Unperch and hasten back to me. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| O gentle maid, O happy boy, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| This copy of my book is done; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| But don't forget that I enjoy | 8 | ··˘/··˘/ |
| A royalty on ev'ry one; | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| Just think how wealthy I should be, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| If you would purchase two or three! | 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.