There was an Old Man of Columbia
There was an Old Man of Columbia,Who was thirsty, and called out for some beer;But they brought it quite hot, in a small copper pot,Which disgusted that man of Columbia.
Words in this poem
- columbia n.
- America; the United States; -- a poetical appellation given in honor of Columbus, the discoverer. Dr. T. Dwight.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
There was an Old Man of Columbia is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Book of Nonsense, Project Gutenberg ebook #13646; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edward Lear, There was an Old Man of Columbia, in A Book of Nonsense (1846), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13646, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lear-nonsense/there-was-an-old-man-of-columbia.html, id L18114.
Form and metre
There was an Old Man of Columbia is 4 lines in a single stanza. The lines average 10.8 syllables. 2 lines end 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 A--A columbiaA · beer · pot · columbiaA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| There was an Old Man of Columbia, | 10 | ······˘/˘˘ |
| Who was thirsty, and called out for some beer; | 10 | ··/˘······ |
| But they brought it quite hot, in a small copper pot, | 12 | ·········/˘· |
| Which disgusted that man of Columbia. | 11 | ·˘/˘···˘/˘˘ |
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.