Brisbane
The northern stirp beneath the southern skies --I build a Nation for an Empire's need,Suffer a little, and my land shall rise,Queen over lands indeed!
Words in this poem
- stirp n.
- Stock; race; family. [L. stirps, stirpis.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Brisbane is in the public domain. This text is taken from Verses 1889-1896, Project Gutenberg ebook #323; 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, Brisbane, in Verses 1889–1896 (1889–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #323, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-verses/brisbane.html, id L16804.
Form and metre
Brisbane is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 9.0 syllables.
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 skiesA · needB · riseA · indeedB
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| The northern stirp beneath the southern skies -- | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| I build a Nation for an Empire's need, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Suffer a little, and my land shall rise, | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| Queen over lands indeed! | 6 | ····˘/ |
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.