Melbourne
Greeting! Nor fear nor favour won us place,Got between greed of gold and dread of drouth,Loud-voiced and reckless as the wild tide-raceThat whips our harbour-mouth!
Words in this poem
- favour n.
- Kind regard; propitious aspect; countenance; friendly disposition; kindness; good will. [Written also favour.]
- greed n.
- An eager desire or longing; greediness; as, a greed of gain. [Akin to Goth. grdus hunger, Icel. graedhr. sq. root34. See Greedy.]
- harbour n.
- A station for rest and entertainment; a place of security and comfort; a refuge; a shelter. [OE herbor, herberwe, herberge, Icel. herbergi (cf. OHG. heriberga), orig., a shelter for soldiers; herr army + bjarga to save, help, defend; akin to AS. here ar]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Melbourne 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, Melbourne, in Verses 1889–1896 (1889–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #323, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-verses/melbourne.html, id L16802.
Form and metre
Melbourne is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 9.2 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 placeA · drouthB · raceA · mouthB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Greeting! Nor fear nor favour won us place, | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| Got between greed of gold and dread of drouth, | 10 | ·········· |
| Loud-voiced and reckless as the wild tide-race | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| That whips our harbour-mouth! | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
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.