A Song: The utmost Grace the Greeks could shew
The utmost Grace the Greeks could shew,When to the Trojans they grew kind,Was with their Arms to let 'em go,And leave their lingring Wives behind.They beat the Men, and burnt the Town,Then all the Baggage was their own.
There the kind Deity of WineKiss'd the soft wanton God of Love;This clapt his Wings, that press'd his Vine,And their best Pow'rs united move.While each brave Greek embrac'd his Punk,Lull'd her asleep, and then grew drunk.
Words in this poem
- shew n.
- Show. [Obs. except in shewbread.]
- punk n.
- Wood so decayed as to be dry, crumbly, and useful for tinder; touchwood. [Cf. Spunk.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Song: The utmost Grace the Greeks could shew 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: The utmost Grace the Greeks could shew, in The Works of the Earl of Rochester (1680), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #44891, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/rochester-works/a-song-the-utmost-grace-the-greeks-could-shew.html, id L20439.
Form and metre
A Song: The utmost Grace the Greeks could shew is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%).
See 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 -A-A-- shew · kindA · go · behindA · town · own
- 2 ABABCC wineA · loveB · vineA · moveB · punkC · drunkC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The utmost Grace the Greeks could shew, | 8 | ·/······ |
| When to the Trojans they grew kind, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Was with their Arms to let 'em go, | 8 | ········ |
| And leave their lingring Wives behind. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| They beat the Men, and burnt the Town, | 8 | ········ |
| Then all the Baggage was their own. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| There the kind Deity of Wine | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| Kiss'd the soft wanton God of Love; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| This clapt his Wings, that press'd his Vine, | 8 | ········ |
| And their best Pow'rs united move. | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| While each brave Greek embrac'd his Punk, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| Lull'd her asleep, and then grew drunk. | 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.