The Encyclopaedia
"If I could set the moon uponThis table," said my friend,"Among the standard poetsAnd brochures without end,And noble prints of old Japan,How empty they would seem,By that encyclopaediaOf whim and glittering dream."
About this text
The Encyclopaedia is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Congo, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #1021; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Vachel Lindsay, The Encyclopaedia, in The Congo and Other Poems (1914), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1021, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lindsay-congo/the-encyclopaedia.html, id L00987.
Form and metre
The Encyclopaedia is 8 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.8 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 -A-A-B-B upon · friendA · poets · endA · japan · seemB · encyclopaedia · dreamB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "If I could set the moon upon | 8 | ········ |
| This table," said my friend, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| "Among the standard poets | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| And brochures without end, | 6 | ·˘/··· |
| And noble prints of old Japan, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| How empty they would seem, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| By that encyclopaedia | 7 | ··˘·˘/˘ |
| Of whim and glittering dream." | 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.