The Superiority of Machinery
A Mechanic his labour will often discardIf the rate of his pay he dislikes;But a clock--and its case is uncommonly hard--Will continue to work, tho’ it strikes!
About this text
The Superiority of Machinery 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 Superiority of Machinery, in Poems (1827–1845), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56712, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hood-poems/the-superiority-of-machinery.html, id L06822.
Form and metre
The Superiority of Machinery is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables.
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 ABAB discardA · dislikesB · hardA · strikesB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A Mechanic his labour will often discard | 12 | ·˘/˘·/··/˘˘/ |
| If the rate of his pay he dislikes; | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| But a clock--and its case is uncommonly hard-- | 11 | ········/˘· |
| Will continue to work, tho’ it strikes! | 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.