Rangoon
Hail, Mother! Do they call me rich in trade?Little care I, but hear the shorn priest drone,And watch my silk-clad lovers, man by maid,Laugh 'neath my Shwe Dagon.
Words in this poem
- dagon n.
- A slip or piece. [See Dag a loose end.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Rangoon 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, Rangoon, in Verses 1889–1896 (1889–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #323, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-verses/rangoon.html, id L16795.
Form and metre
Rangoon is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 9.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 tradeA · droneB · maidA · dagonB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Hail, Mother! Do they call me rich in trade? | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Little care I, but hear the shorn priest drone, | 10 | /˘········ |
| And watch my silk-clad lovers, man by maid, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Laugh 'neath my Shwe Dagon. | 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.