Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Volume I
The book that began the ballad revival in 1765 and taught the Romantics their measure.
What this poem is
The Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (sometimes known as Reliques of Ancient Poetry or simply Percy's Reliques) is a collection of ballads and popular songs collected by Bishop Thomas Percy and published in 1765.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article “Reliques of Ancient English Poetry” (revision 1294590961), used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Laurel's own notes and measurements are not from Wikipedia.
Measured across the book
Across its 4,218 lines, 97% of stressed syllables fall on the beat (95% interval 97% to 97%). Alliteration runs at 1.16 times what shuffling the words would give (0.22 observed against 0.19 expected). 15% of the lines have a feminine ending.
Baselines and intervals are described in the methods.
Contents
About this text
Public domain. Text from Reliques of Ancient English Poetry, Volume 1 (of 3) Consisting of Old Heroic Ballads, Songs and Other Pieces of Our Earlier Poets Together With Some Few of Later Date, Project Gutenberg ebook #45939. Free to read, print, copy and reuse.