Political Precept
All that thou doest is right; but, friend, don't carry this preceptOn too far,--be content, all that is right to effect.It is enough to true zeal, if what is existing be perfect;False zeal always would find finished perfection at once.
About this text
Political Precept is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Schiller — Third period, Project Gutenberg ebook #6796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Friedrich Schiller, Political Precept, in The Poems of Schiller: Third Period (1805), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/schiller-third-period/political-precept.html, id L21897.
Form and metre
Political Precept is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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 -AA- precept · effectA · perfectA · once
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 |
|---|---|---|
| All that thou doest is right; but, friend, don't carry this precept | 14 | ·········/˘·/· |
| On too far,--be content, all that is right to effect. | 13 | ····/˘·····˘/ |
| It is enough to true zeal, if what is existing be perfect; | 16 | ··˘/······˘/˘·˘/ |
| False zeal always would find finished perfection at once. | 13 | ··/˘··/˘˘/˘·· |
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.