A Song: Love a Woman! you're an Ass
Love a Woman! you're an Ass,'Tis a most insipid Passion;To chuse out for your Happiness,The silliest Part of God's Creation.
Let the Porter, and the Groom,Things design'd for dirty Slaves;Drudge in fair Aurelia's Womb,To get Supplies for Age and Graves.
Farewel, Woman, I intend,Henceforth, ev'ry Night to sitWith my lewd well-natur'd Friend,Drinking to engender Wit.
Words in this poem
- womb n.
- The belly; the abdomen. [OE. wombe, wambe, AS. wamb, womb; akin to D. wam belly, OS. & OHG. wamba, G. wamme, wampe, Icel. vömb, Sw. v&mb, Dan. vom, Goth. wamba.]
- intend v. t.
- To stretch' to extend; to distend. [OE. entenden to be attentive, F. entendre, fr. L. intendre, intentum, and intensum, to intend, attend, stretch out, extend; pref. in- in + tendere to stretch, s]
- henceforth adv.
- From this time forward; henceforward.
- lewd a.
- Not clerical; laic; laical; hence, unlearned; simple. [OE.lewed, lewd, lay, ignorant, vile, AS. l laical, belonging to the laity.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Song: Love a Woman! you're an Ass is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Works of the Right Honourable John, Earl of Rochester Consisting of Satires, Songs, Translations, and other Occasional Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #44891; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Wilmot Rochester, A Song: Love a Woman! you're an Ass, in The Works of the Earl of Rochester (1680), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #44891, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rochester-works/a-song-love-a-woman-you-re-an-ass.html, id L20447.
Form and metre
A Song: Love a Woman! you're an Ass is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
See other poems in trochaic 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- assA · passion · happinessA · creation
- 2 ABAB groomA · slavesB · wombA · gravesB
- 3 ABAB intendA · sitB · friendA · witB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Love a Woman! you're an Ass, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| 'Tis a most insipid Passion; | 8 | ···˘/˘/˘ |
| To chuse out for your Happiness, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| The silliest Part of God's Creation. | 9 | ·/˘···˘/˘ |
| Let the Porter, and the Groom, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Things design'd for dirty Slaves; | 7 | ·˘/·/˘· |
| Drudge in fair Aurelia's Womb, | 7 | ······· |
| To get Supplies for Age and Graves. | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Farewel, Woman, I intend, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Henceforth, ev'ry Night to sit | 7 | //····· |
| With my lewd well-natur'd Friend, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Drinking to engender Wit. | 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.