The Jester
There are three degrees of blissAt the foot of Allah's Throne,And the highest place is hisWho saves a brother's soulAt peril of his own.There is the Power made known!
There are three degrees of blissIn the Gardens of Paradise,And the second place is hisWho saves his brother's soulBy excellent advice.For there the Glory lies!
There are three degrees of blissAnd three abodes of the Blest,And the lowest place is hisWho has saved a soul by a jestAnd a brother's soul in sport ...But there do the Angels resort!
Words in this poem
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Jester is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, The Jester, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/the-jester.html, id L20368.
Form and metre
The Jester is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See 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 -A--AA bliss · throneA · his · soul · ownA · knownA
- 2 -A--A- bliss · paradiseA · his · soul · adviceA · lies
- 3 -A-ABB bliss · blestA · his · jestA · sportB · resortB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There are three degrees of bliss | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| At the foot of Allah's Throne, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And the highest place is his | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Who saves a brother's soul | 6 | ···/˘· |
| At peril of his own. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| There is the Power made known! | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| There are three degrees of bliss | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| In the Gardens of Paradise, | 8 | ··/˘·/˘· |
| And the second place is his | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Who saves his brother's soul | 6 | ···/˘· |
| By excellent advice. | 6 | ·/˘˘˘/ |
| For there the Glory lies! | 6 | ···/˘· |
| There are three degrees of bliss | 7 | ···˘/·· |
| And three abodes of the Blest, | 7 | ··˘/··· |
| And the lowest place is his | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Who has saved a soul by a jest | 8 | ········ |
| And a brother's soul in sport ... | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| But there do the Angels resort! | 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.