On the Depreciated Money
They may talk of the plugging and sweating,Of our coinage that’s minted of gold,But to me it produces no frettingOf its shortness of weight to be told:
All the sov’reigns I’m able to levyAs to lightness can never be wrong,But must surely be some of the heavy,For I never can carry them long.
Words in this poem
- plugging n.
- The act of stopping with a plug.
- coinage n.
- The act or process of converting metal into money. [From Coin, v. t., cf. Cuinage.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On the Depreciated Money is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Comic Poems of Thomas Hood A New and Complete Edition, Project Gutenberg ebook #56712; 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 Hood, On the Depreciated Money, in Poems (1827–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56712, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poems/on-the-depreciated-money.html, id L06833.
Form and metre
On the Depreciated Money is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is anapaestic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 99%). 73% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.2 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic trimeter.
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 ABAB sweatingA · goldB · frettingA · toldB
- 2 ABAB levyA · wrongB · heavyA · longB
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 anapaestic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| They may talk of the plugging and sweating, | 10 | ·····/˘·/˘ |
| Of our coinage that’s minted of gold, | 9 | ·//˘·/˘·· |
| But to me it produces no fretting | 10 | ····˘/˘·/˘ |
| Of its shortness of weight to be told: | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| All the sov’reigns I’m able to levy | 10 | ·····/˘·/˘ |
| As to lightness can never be wrong, | 8 | ··/˘·/·· |
| But must surely be some of the heavy, | 10 | ··/˘····/˘ |
| For I never can carry them long. | 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.