Daniel Defoe
Few will acknowledge what they oweTo persecuted, brave Defoe.Achilles, in Homeric song,May, or he may not, live so longAs Crusoe; few their strength had triedWithout so staunch and safe a guide.What boy is there who never laidUnder his pillow, half afraid,That precious volume, lest the morrowFor unlearnt lessons might bring sorrow?But nobler lessons he has taughtWide-awake scholars who fear'd naught:A Rodney and a Nelson mayWithout him not have won the day.
Words in this poem
- homeric a.
- Of or pertaining to Homer, the most famous of Greek poets; resembling the poetry of Homer. Homeric verse, hexameter verse; -- so called because used by Homer in his epics.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Daniel Defoe is in the public domain. This text is taken from Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, Project Gutenberg ebook #21628; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walter Savage Landor, Daniel Defoe, in Imaginary Conversations and Poems (1795–1863), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #21628, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/landor-poems/daniel-defoe.html, id L12212.
Form and metre
Daniel Defoe is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 50% 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 AABBCCDDEEFFGG oweA · defoeA · songB · longB · triedC · guideC · laidD · afraidD · morrowE · sorrowE · taughtF · naughtF · mayG · dayG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Few will acknowledge what they owe | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| To persecuted, brave Defoe. | 8 | ·/˘·˘·˘/ |
| Achilles, in Homeric song, | 8 | ˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| May, or he may not, live so long | 8 | ········ |
| As Crusoe; few their strength had tried | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Without so staunch and safe a guide. | 8 | ········ |
| What boy is there who never laid | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Under his pillow, half afraid, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| That precious volume, lest the morrow | 9 | ·/˘/˘··/˘ |
| For unlearnt lessons might bring sorrow? | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| But nobler lessons he has taught | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Wide-awake scholars who fear'd naught: | 8 | ·˘//˘··· |
| A Rodney and a Nelson may | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Without him not have won the day. | 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.