The Vintage to the Dungeon I
Sing out, pent soules, sing cheerefully!Care shackles you in liberty:Mirth frees you in captivity.Would you double fetters adde?Else why so sadde?
Chorus.Besides your pinion'd armes youl findeGriefe too can manakell the minde.
Words in this poem
- pent p. p.
- Penned or shut up; confined; -- often with up. [From Pen, v. t.]
- sadde a.
- Sated; satisfied; weary; tired. [OE. sad sated, tired, satisfied, firm, steadfast, AS. sæd satisfied, sated; akin to D. zat, OS. sad, G. tt, OHG. sat, sa, saddr, Goth. saps, Lith. sotus, L. sat]
- youl v. i.
- To yell; to yowl.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Vintage to the Dungeon I is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lucasta, Project Gutenberg ebook #703; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Richard Lovelace, The Vintage to the Dungeon I, in Lucasta (1649), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #703, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lovelace-lucasta/the-vintage-to-the-dungeon-i.html, id L25386.
Form and metre
The Vintage to the Dungeon I is 8 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%).
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 ---AA cheerefully · liberty · captivity · addeA · saddeA
- 2 -AA chorus · findeA · mindeA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Sing out, pent soules, sing cheerefully! | 9 | ········· |
| Care shackles you in liberty: | 8 | ·/˘··/˘˘ |
| Mirth frees you in captivity. | 8 | ····˘/˘˘ |
| Would you double fetters adde? | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| Else why so sadde? | 4 | ···· |
| Chorus. | 2 | /˘ |
| Besides your pinion'd armes youl finde | 8 | ˘/······ |
| Griefe too can manakell the minde. | 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.