3. The Swallow
Foolish prater, what dost thouSo early at my window do?Cruel bird, thou’st ta’en awayA dream out of my arms to-day;A dream that ne’er must equall’d beBy all that waking eyes may see.Thou this damage to repairNothing half so sweet and fair,Nothing half so good, canst bring,Tho’ men say thou bring’st the Spring.
About this text
3. The Swallow is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Abraham Cowley, 3. The Swallow, in Poems (1618–1667), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-abraham-cowley/3-the-swallow.html, id L16099.
Form and metre
3. The Swallow is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 80% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.4 syllables. 40% 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 --AABBCCDD thou · do · awayA · dayA · beB · seeB · repairC · fairC · bringD · springD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Foolish prater, what dost thou | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| So early at my window do? | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Cruel bird, thou’st ta’en away | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| A dream out of my arms to-day; | 8 | ········ |
| A dream that ne’er must equall’d be | 8 | ········ |
| By all that waking eyes may see. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Thou this damage to repair | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Nothing half so sweet and fair, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Nothing half so good, canst bring, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Tho’ men say thou bring’st the Spring. | 7 | ······· |
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.