The Poet’s Feast
The golden feast for jovial souls prepareWhose wants the wants of nature far exceed;The nectar of the sun such palates need;To them the fatted calf is vulgar fare.Earth’s dripping fruits may wandering Arabs sharePleased with the pulp and juice whereon they feed;And bread alone is still the poor man’s meed,Though milk abound and honey be to spare.So dreams the Poet, with his crust content:The crumbs that from the rich man’s table fallTo him are sorry signs of merrimentTo show the world has food enough for all.At festive boards he has but little part—To him ’twas given to feed on his own heart.
Words in this poem
- jovial a.
- Of or pertaining to the god, or the planet, Jupiter. [F., fr. L. Jovialis pertaining to Jove. The planet Jupiter was thought to make those born under it joyful or jovial. See Jove.]
- dripping n.
- A falling in drops, or the sound so made.
- whereon adv.
- On which; -- used relatively; as, the earth whereon we live.
- meed v. t.
- To reward; to repay. Waytt.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Poet’s Feast is in the public domain. This text is taken from The poems of Thomas Gordon Hake, Project Gutenberg ebook #78947; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Gordon Hake, The Poet’s Feast, in Poems (1870), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #78947, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hake-poems/the-poet-s-feast.html, id L23613.
Form and metre
The Poet’s Feast is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDCDEE. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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.
- 1 ABBAABBACDCDEE prepareA · exceedB · needB · fareA · shareA · feedB · meedB · spareA · contentC · fallD · merrimentC · allD · partE · heartE
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 golden feast for jovial souls prepare | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| Whose wants the wants of nature far exceed; | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| The nectar of the sun such palates need; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| To them the fatted calf is vulgar fare. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Earth’s dripping fruits may wandering Arabs share | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Pleased with the pulp and juice whereon they feed; | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| And bread alone is still the poor man’s meed, | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| Though milk abound and honey be to spare. | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| So dreams the Poet, with his crust content: | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| The crumbs that from the rich man’s table fall | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| To him are sorry signs of merriment | 10 | ···/˘··/˘˘ |
| To show the world has food enough for all. | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| At festive boards he has but little part— | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| To him ’twas given to feed on his own heart. | 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.