A Love Song in the Modern Taste. 1733
Fluttering spread thy purple pinions,Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart:I a slave in thy dominions;Nature must give way to art.
Mild Arcadians, ever bloomingNightly nodding o'er your flocks,See my weary days consumingAll beneath yon flowery rocks.
Thus the Cyprian goddess weepingMourn'd Adonis, darling youth;Him the boar, in silence creeping,Gored with unrelenting tooth.
Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers;Fair Discretion, string the lyre;Sooth my ever-waking slumbers:Bright Apollo, lend thy choir.
Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors,Arm'd in adamantine chains,Lead me to the crystal mirrors,Watering soft Elysian plains.
Mournful cypress, verdant willow,Gilding my Aurelia's brows,Morpheus, hovering o'er my pillow,Hear me pay my dying vows.
Melancholy smooth Meander,Swiftly purling in a round,On thy margin lovers wander,With thy flowery chaplets crown'd.
Thus when Philomela droopingSoftly seeks her silent mate,See the bird of Juno stooping;Melody resigns to fate.
Words in this poem
- cupid
- The god of love, son of Venus; usually represented as a naked, winged boy with bow and arrow. [L.Cupido, fr. cupido desire, desire of love, fr. cupidus. See Cupidity.]
- nightly a.
- Of or pertaining to the night, or to every night; happening or done by night, or every night; as, nightly shades; he kept nightly vigils.
- cyprian a.
- Belonging to Cyprus.
- unrelenting a.
- Not relenting; unyielding; rigid; hard; stern; cruel.
- discretion n.
- Disjunction; separation. Mede. [F. discrétion, L. discretio separation, difference, discernment, fr. discernere, discretum. See Discreet, Discern.]
- sooth a.
- True; faithful; trustworthy. [OE. soth, AS. s, for san; akin to OS. s, OHG. sand, Icel. sannr, Sw. sann, Dan. sand, Skr. sat, sant, real, genuine, present, being; properly p. pr. from a root]
- elysian a.
- Pertaining, or the abode of the blessed after death; hence, yielding the highest pleasures; exceedingly delightful; beatific. [L. Elysius, fr. Elysium.]
- morpheus n.
- The god of dreams.
- purling n.
- The motion of a small stream running among obstructions; also, the murmur it makes in so doing. [See 3d Purl.]
- philomela n.
- The nightingale; philomel.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Love Song in the Modern Taste. 1733 is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 1, Project Gutenberg ebook #14353; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Jonathan Swift, A Love Song in the Modern Taste. 1733, in On Poetry: A Rhapsody, and Other Poems (1727), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #14353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems-vol1/a-love-song-in-the-modern-taste-1733.html, id L24566.
Form and metre
A Love Song in the Modern Taste. 1733 is 32 lines in 8 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 4 of its 8 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%).
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 ABAB pinionsA · heartB · dominionsA · artB
- 2 ABAB bloomingA · flocksB · consumingA · rocksB
- 3 ABAB weepingA · youthB · creepingA · toothB
- 4 A-A- numbersA · lyre · slumbersA · choir
- 5 -A-A terrors · chainsA · mirrors · plainsA
- 6 -A-A willow · browsA · pillow · vowsA
- 7 -A-A meander · roundA · wander · crown'dA
- 8 ABAB droopingA · mateB · stoopingA · fateB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Fluttering spread thy purple pinions, | 9 | /˘˘··/˘/˘ |
| Gentle Cupid, o'er my heart: | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| I a slave in thy dominions; | 8 | ·····˘/˘ |
| Nature must give way to art. | 7 | /˘····· |
| Mild Arcadians, ever blooming | 9 | ··/˘˘/˘/˘ |
| Nightly nodding o'er your flocks, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| See my weary days consuming | 8 | ··/˘·˘/˘ |
| All beneath yon flowery rocks. | 8 | ····/˘˘· |
| Thus the Cyprian goddess weeping | 9 | ··/˘˘/˘/˘ |
| Mourn'd Adonis, darling youth; | 7 | ·˘/˘/˘· |
| Him the boar, in silence creeping, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Gored with unrelenting tooth. | 8 | ·˘··˘/˘· |
| Cynthia, tune harmonious numbers; | 9 | /˘·˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Fair Discretion, string the lyre; | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| Sooth my ever-waking slumbers: | 8 | ··/˘/˘/˘ |
| Bright Apollo, lend thy choir. | 8 | ·˘/˘··/˘ |
| Gloomy Pluto, king of terrors, | 8 | /˘/˘··/˘ |
| Arm'd in adamantine chains, | 7 | ······· |
| Lead me to the crystal mirrors, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Watering soft Elysian plains. | 8 | /˘˘·˘/˘· |
| Mournful cypress, verdant willow, | 8 | /˘/˘/˘/· |
| Gilding my Aurelia's brows, | 7 | /˘····· |
| Morpheus, hovering o'er my pillow, | 9 | /˘/˘˘··/˘ |
| Hear me pay my dying vows. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Melancholy smooth Meander, | 8 | /˘·˘·˘/˘ |
| Swiftly purling in a round, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| On thy margin lovers wander, | 8 | ··/˘/˘/˘ |
| With thy flowery chaplets crown'd. | 8 | ··/˘˘··· |
| Thus when Philomela drooping | 8 | ···˘/˘/˘ |
| Softly seeks her silent mate, | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| See the bird of Juno stooping; | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| Melody resigns to fate. | 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.