Truth
Permit me, madame, to declareThat I never will compareEyes of yours to Starlight cold,Or your locks to Sunlight’s gold,Or your lips, I’d have you know,To the crimson Jacqueminot.
Stuff like that’s all very fineWhen you get so much a line;Since I don’t, I scorn to tellFlattering lies. I like too wellSun and Stars and JacqueminotTo flatter them, I’d have you know.
Words in this poem
- madame n.
- My lady; -- a French title formerly given to ladies of quality; now, in France, given to all married women. [F., fr. ma my (L. mea) + dame dame. See Dame, and cf. Madonna.]
- starlight n.
- The light given by the stars.
- jacqueminot n.
- A half-hardy, deep crimson rose of the remontant class; -- so named after General Jacqueminot, of France.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Truth is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Bashful Earthquake, & Other Fables and Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #56765; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Oliver Herford, Truth, in The Bashful Earthquake, and Other Fables and Verses (1898), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56765, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/herford-bashful-earthquake/truth.html, id L22105.
Form and metre
Truth is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in trochaic 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 AABB-- declareA · compareA · coldB · goldB · know · jacqueminot
- 2 AABB-- fineA · lineA · tellB · wellB · jacqueminot · know
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Permit me, madame, to declare | 8 | ˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| That I never will compare | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Eyes of yours to Starlight cold, | 7 | ····/·· |
| Or your locks to Sunlight’s gold, | 7 | ····/·· |
| Or your lips, I’d have you know, | 7 | ······· |
| To the crimson Jacqueminot. | 7 | ··/˘/˘˘ |
| Stuff like that’s all very fine | 7 | ····/˘· |
| When you get so much a line; | 7 | ······· |
| Since I don’t, I scorn to tell | 7 | ······· |
| Flattering lies. I like too well | 8 | /˘˘····· |
| Sun and Stars and Jacqueminot | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| To flatter them, I’d have you know. | 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.