The Counter-Turn
Did wiser nature draw thee back,From out the horror of that sack,Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right,Lay trampled on? the deeds of death and night,Urged, hurried forth, and hurledUpon th’ affrighted world;Sword, fire, and famine, with fell fury met,And all on utmost ruin set;As, could they but life’s miseries foresee,No doubt all infants would return like thee.
Words in this poem
- honour n.
- Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. [OE. honor, honour, onour, onur, OF. honor, onor, honur, onur, honour, onour, F. honneur, fr. L. honor, honos.]
- famine n.
- General scarcity of food; dearth; a want of provisions; destitution. [F. famine, fr. L. fames hunger; cf. Gr. hani loss, lack, ha to leave.]
- foresee v. i.
- To have or exercise foresight.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Counter-Turn is in the public domain. This text is taken from Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #5134; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ben Jonson, The Counter-Turn, in Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter and Some Poems (1616), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5134, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/jonson-poems/the-counter-turn.html, id L23810.
Form and metre
The Counter-Turn is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 AABBCCDDEE backA · sackA · rightB · nightB · hurledC · worldC · metD · setD · foreseeE · theeE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Did wiser nature draw thee back, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| From out the horror of that sack, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Where shame, faith, honour, and regard of right, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Lay trampled on? the deeds of death and night, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Urged, hurried forth, and hurled | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Upon th’ affrighted world; | 6 | ······ |
| Sword, fire, and famine, with fell fury met, | 10 | ·/·/˘··/˘· |
| And all on utmost ruin set; | 8 | ···/·/˘· |
| As, could they but life’s miseries foresee, | 10 | ·····/˘˘˘/ |
| No doubt all infants would return like thee. | 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.