'Learn to Take Things Easily'
To these few words, it seems to me,A wealth of sound instruction clings;O Learn to Take things easily--Espeshly Other People's Things;And Time will make your fingers deftAt what is known as Petty Theft.
'Fools and Their Money soon must part!'And you can help this on, may be,If, in the kindness of your Heart,You Learn to Take things easily;And be, with little education,A Prince of Misappropriation.
Words in this poem
- wealth n.
- Weal; welfare; prosperity; good. [OE. welthe, from wele; cf. D. weelde luxury. See Weal prosperity.]
- deft a.
- Apt; fit; dexterous; clever; handy; spruce; neat. [OE. daft, deft, becoming, mild, gentle, stupid (cf. OE. daffe, deffe, fool, coward), AS. dæft (in derivatives only) mild, gentle, fitting, seasonable; akin to d]
- misappropriation n.
- Wrong appropriation; wrongful use.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
'Learn to Take Things Easily' 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, 'Learn to Take Things Easily', in Verse and Worse (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36702, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/graham-verse-and-worse/learn-to-take-things-easily.html, id L23337.
Form and metre
'Learn to Take Things Easily' is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 -A-ABB me · clingsA · easily · thingsA · deftB · theftB
- 2 A-A-BB partA · be · heartA · easily · educationB · misappropriationB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| To these few words, it seems to me, | 8 | ········ |
| A wealth of sound instruction clings; | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| O Learn to Take things easily-- | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Espeshly Other People's Things; | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And Time will make your fingers deft | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| At what is known as Petty Theft. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| 'Fools and Their Money soon must part!' | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And you can help this on, may be, | 8 | ········ |
| If, in the kindness of your Heart, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| You Learn to Take things easily; | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| And be, with little education, | 9 | ···/˘·˘/˘ |
| A Prince of Misappropriation. | 9 | ····˘·˘/˘ |
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.