To Miss Hickman, Playing on the Spinet
Bright Stella, form'd for universal reign,Too well you know to keep the slaves you gain;When in your eyes resistless lightnings play,Aw'd into love our conquer'd hearts obey,And yield reluctant to despotick sway:But, when your musick sooths the raging pain,We bid propitious heav'n prolong your reign,We bless the tyrant, and we hug the chain.When old Timotheus struck the vocal string,Ambition's fury fir'd the Grecian king:Unbounded projects lab'ring in his mind,He pants for room, in one poor world confin'd.Thus wak'd to rage, by musick's dreadful pow'r,He bids the sword destroy, the flame devour.Had Stella's gentle touches mov'd the lyre,Soon had the monarch felt a nobler fire;No more delighted with destructive war,Ambitious only now to please the fair,Resign'd his thirst of empire to her charms,And found a thousand worlds in Stella's arms.
Words in this poem
- resistless a.
- Having no power to resist; making no opposition.
- dreadful a.
- Full of dread or terror; fearful.
- delighted a.
- Endowed with delight.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Miss Hickman, Playing on the Spinet is in the public domain. This text is taken from Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 (The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes, 1825), Project Gutenberg ebook #10835; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Samuel Johnson, To Miss Hickman, Playing on the Spinet, in Poems (1825), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #10835, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-poems/to-miss-hickman-playing-on-the-spinet.html, id L27152.
Form and metre
To Miss Hickman, Playing on the Spinet is 20 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 70% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AABBBAAACCDD--EE--FF reignA · gainA · playB · obeyB · swayB · painA · reignA · chainA · stringC · kingC · mindD · confin'dD · pow'r · devour · lyreE · fireE · war · fair · charmsF · armsF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Bright Stella, form'd for universal reign, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| Too well you know to keep the slaves you gain; | 10 | ·········· |
| When in your eyes resistless lightnings play, | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘· |
| Aw'd into love our conquer'd hearts obey, | 10 | ····//˘·˘/ |
| And yield reluctant to despotick sway: | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| But, when your musick sooths the raging pain, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| We bid propitious heav'n prolong your reign, | 10 | ··˘/˘·˘/·· |
| We bless the tyrant, and we hug the chain. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| When old Timotheus struck the vocal string, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Ambition's fury fir'd the Grecian king: | 10 | ˘/˘/˘/·/˘· |
| Unbounded projects lab'ring in his mind, | 10 | ˘/˘/˘····· |
| He pants for room, in one poor world confin'd. | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Thus wak'd to rage, by musick's dreadful pow'r, | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| He bids the sword destroy, the flame devour. | 11 | ····˘/··˘/˘ |
| Had Stella's gentle touches mov'd the lyre, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Soon had the monarch felt a nobler fire; | 11 | ···/···/˘/˘ |
| No more delighted with destructive war, | 10 | ··˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| Ambitious only now to please the fair, | 10 | ˘/˘/˘····· |
| Resign'd his thirst of empire to her charms, | 10 | ˘/···/˘··· |
| And found a thousand worlds in Stella's arms. | 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.