To Certain Poets
Now is the rhymer's honest tradeA thing for scornful laughter made.
The merchant's sneer, the clerk's disdain,These are the burden of our pain.
Because of you did this befall,You brought this shame upon us all.
You little poets mincing thereWith women's hearts and women's hair!
How sick Dan Chaucer's ghost must beTo hear you lisp of "Poesie"!
A heavy-handed blow, I think,Would make your veins drip scented ink.
You strut and smirk your little whileSo mildly, delicately vile!
Your tiny voices mock God's wrath,You snails that crawl along His path!
Why, what has God or man to doWith wet, amorphous things like you?
This thing alone you have achieved:Because of you, it is believed
That all who earn their bread by rhymeAre like yourselves, exuding slime.
Oh, cease to write, for very shame,Ere all men spit upon our name!
Take up your needles, drop your pen,And leave the poet's craft to men!
Words in this poem
- mincing a.
- That minces; characterized by primness or affected nicety.
- ghost n.
- The spirit; the soul of man. [OE. gast, gost, soul, spirit, AS. gast breath, spirit, soul; akin to OS. g spirit, soul, D. geest, G. geist, and prob. to E. gaze, ghastly.]
- lisp v. i.
- To pronounce the sibilant letter s imperfectly; to give s and z the sound of th; -- a defect common among children. [OE. lispen, lipsen, AS. wlisp stammering, lisping; akin to D. & OHG. lispen to lisp, G. lispeln, Sw. läspa, Dan. lespe.]
- drip v. i.
- To fall in drops; as, water drips from the eaves. [Akin to LG. drippen, Dan. dryppe, from a noun. See Drop.]
- crawl v. i.
- To move slowly by drawing the body along the ground, as a worm; to move slowly on hands and kness; to creep. [Dan. kravle, or Icel. krafla, to paw, scrabble with the hands; akin to Sw. kr to crawl; cf. LG. krabbeln, D. krabbelen to scratch.]
- craft n.
- Strength; might; secret power. [AS. cr strength, skill, art, cunning; akin to OS., G., Sw., & Dan. kraft strength, D. kracht, Icel. kraptr; perh. originally, a drawing together, stretching, fr]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Certain Poets is in the public domain. This text is taken from Trees, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #263; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Joyce Kilmer, To Certain Poets, in Trees and Other Poems (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #263, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kilmer-trees/to-certain-poets.html, id L12903.
Form and metre
To Certain Poets is 26 lines in 13 stanzas of 2 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 92% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 27% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 tradeA · madeA
- 2 AA disdainA · painA
- 3 AA befallA · allA
- 4 AA thereA · hairA
- 6 AA thinkA · inkA
- 7 AA whileA · vileA
- 8 AA wrathA · pathA
- 9 AA doA · youA
- 10 AA achievedA · believedA
- 11 AA rhymeA · slimeA
- 12 AA shameA · nameA
- 13 AA penA · menA
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Now is the rhymer's honest trade | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| A thing for scornful laughter made. | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The merchant's sneer, the clerk's disdain, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| These are the burden of our pain. | 8 | ···/˘·/· |
| Because of you did this befall, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| You brought this shame upon us all. | 8 | ········ |
| You little poets mincing there | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| With women's hearts and women's hair! | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| How sick Dan Chaucer's ghost must be | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To hear you lisp of "Poesie"! | 7 | ······· |
| A heavy-handed blow, I think, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Would make your veins drip scented ink. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| You strut and smirk your little while | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| So mildly, delicately vile! | 8 | ·/˘/˘˘˘· |
| Your tiny voices mock God's wrath, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| You snails that crawl along His path! | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| Why, what has God or man to do | 8 | ········ |
| With wet, amorphous things like you? | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| This thing alone you have achieved: | 8 | ··˘/··˘/ |
| Because of you, it is believed | 8 | ······˘/ |
| That all who earn their bread by rhyme | 8 | ········ |
| Are like yourselves, exuding slime. | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| Oh, cease to write, for very shame, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Ere all men spit upon our name! | 8 | ······/· |
| Take up your needles, drop your pen, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And leave the poet's craft to men! | 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.