Japan
Inhabitants of far JapanAre happy as the day is longTo sit behind a paper fanAnd sing a kind of tuneless song,Desisting, ev'ry little while,To have a public bath, or smile.
The members of the fairer sexAre clad in a becoming dress,One garment reaching from their necksDown to the ankles more or less;Behind each dainty ear they wearA cherry-blossom in their hair.
If 'Imitation's flattery'(We learn it at our mother's lap),A flatterer by birth must beOur clever little friend the Jap,Who does whatever we can do,And does it rather better too.
Words in this poem
- tuneless a.
- Without tune; inharmonious; unmusical.
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- dainty n.
- Value; estimation; the gratification or pleasure taken in anything. [OE. deinie, dainte, deintie, deyntee, OF. deintié delicacy, orig., dignity, honor, fr. L. dignitas, fr. dignus worthy. See Deign, and cf. Dignity.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Japan 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, Japan, in Verse and Worse (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36702, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/graham-verse-and-worse/japan.html, id L23309.
Form and metre
Japan is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABABCC, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 japanA · longB · fanA · songB · whileC · smileC
- 2 ABABCC sexA · dressB · necksA · lessB · wearC · hairC
- 3 -A-ABB flattery · lapA · be · japA · doB · tooB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Inhabitants of far Japan | 8 | ˘/˘˘··˘/ |
| Are happy as the day is long | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| To sit behind a paper fan | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And sing a kind of tuneless song, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Desisting, ev'ry little while, | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| To have a public bath, or smile. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The members of the fairer sex | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Are clad in a becoming dress, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| One garment reaching from their necks | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Down to the ankles more or less; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Behind each dainty ear they wear | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A cherry-blossom in their hair. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| If 'Imitation's flattery' | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘˘ |
| (We learn it at our mother's lap), | 8 | ····//˘· |
| A flatterer by birth must be | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| Our clever little friend the Jap, | 8 | //˘/˘··· |
| Who does whatever we can do, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And does it rather better too. | 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.