The Vintage to the Dungeon II
Live then, pris'ners, uncontrol'd;Drink oth' strong, the rich, the old,Till wine too hath your wits in hold;Then if still your jollitieAnd throats are free--
Chorus.Tryumph in your bonds and paines,And daunce to the music of your chaines.
About this text
The Vintage to the Dungeon II 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 II, in Lucasta (1649), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #703, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lovelace-lucasta/the-vintage-to-the-dungeon-ii.html, id L25387.
Form and metre
The Vintage to the Dungeon II 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 85%).
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 AAA-- uncontrol'dA · oldA · holdA · jollitie · free
- 2 -AA chorus · painesA · chainesA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Live then, pris'ners, uncontrol'd; | 7 | ······· |
| Drink oth' strong, the rich, the old, | 7 | ······· |
| Till wine too hath your wits in hold; | 8 | ········ |
| Then if still your jollitie | 7 | ······· |
| And throats are free-- | 4 | ···· |
| Chorus. | 2 | /˘ |
| Tryumph in your bonds and paines, | 6 | ······ |
| And daunce to the music of your chaines. | 9 | ····/˘··· |
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.