The Pursuit of Letters
The Germans for Learning enjoy great repute;But the English make Letters still more a pursuit;For a Cockney will go from the banks of the ThamesTo Cologne for an O, and to Nassau for M’s.
Words in this poem
- cockney n.
- An effeminate person; a spoilt child. [OE. cocknay, cokenay, a spoiled child, effeminate person, an egg; prob. orig. a cock's egg, a small imperfect egg; OE. cok cock + nay, neye, for ey egg (cf. New]
- cologne n.
- A perfumed liquid, composed of alcohol and certain aromatic oils, used in the toilet; -- called also cologne water and eau de cologne. [Originally made in Cologne, the French name of Köln, a city in Germany.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Pursuit of Letters 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, The Pursuit of Letters, in Poems (1827–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56712, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poems/the-pursuit-of-letters.html, id L06818.
Form and metre
The Pursuit of Letters is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The lines average 11.8 syllables.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 AA-- reputeA · pursuitA · thames · —
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The Germans for Learning enjoy great repute; | 11 | ·/˘·/˘˘/·˘/ |
| But the English make Letters still more a pursuit; | 12 | ··/˘·/˘···˘/ |
| For a Cockney will go from the banks of the Thames | 12 | ··/˘········ |
| To Cologne for an O, and to Nassau for M’s. | 12 | ·˘/·····/˘·· |
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.