Advice to the Grub-Street Verse-Writers 1726
Ye poets ragged and forlorn,Down from your garrets haste;Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,Not yet consign'd to paste;
I know a trick to make you thrive;O, 'tis a quaint device:Your still-born poems shall revive,And scorn to wrap up spice.
Get all your verses printed fair,Then let them well be dried;And Curll must have a special careTo leave the margin wide.
Lend these to paper-sparing Pope;And when he sets to write,No letter with an envelopeCould give him more delight.
When Pope has fill'd the margins round,Why then recall your loan;Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,And swear they are your own.
Words in this poem
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
- quaint a.
- Prudent; wise; hence, crafty; artful; wily. [OE. queint, queynte, coint, prudent, wise, cunning, pretty, odd, OF. cointe cultivated, amiable, agreeable, neat, fr. L. cognitus known, p. p. of cognoscere to ]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- curll v. t.
- To twist or form into ringlets; to crisp, as the hair. [Akin to D. krullen, Dan. kr, dial. Sw. krulla to curl, crisp; possibly akin to E. crook. Cf. Curl, n., Cruller.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Advice to the Grub-Street Verse-Writers 1726 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, Advice to the Grub-Street Verse-Writers 1726, in On Poetry: A Rhapsody, and Other Poems (1727), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #14353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems-vol1/advice-to-the-grub-street-verse-writers-1726.html, id L24530.
Form and metre
Advice to the Grub-Street Verse-Writers 1726 is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%).
See other poems in common measure.
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 forlornA · hasteB · bornA · pasteB
- 2 ABAB thriveA · deviceB · reviveA · spiceB
- 3 ABAB fairA · driedB · careA · wideB
- 4 ABAB popeA · writeB · envelopeA · delightB
- 5 ABAB roundA · loanB · poundA · ownB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Ye poets ragged and forlorn, | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Down from your garrets haste; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Not yet consign'd to paste; | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| I know a trick to make you thrive; | 8 | ········ |
| O, 'tis a quaint device: | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Your still-born poems shall revive, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| And scorn to wrap up spice. | 6 | ······ |
| Get all your verses printed fair, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Then let them well be dried; | 6 | ······ |
| And Curll must have a special care | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To leave the margin wide. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Lend these to paper-sparing Pope; | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And when he sets to write, | 6 | ······ |
| No letter with an envelope | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Could give him more delight. | 6 | ····˘/ |
| When Pope has fill'd the margins round, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Why then recall your loan; | 6 | ··/··· |
| Sell them to Curll for fifty pound, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And swear they are your own. | 6 | ······ |
Notes from the edition 2
The notes to the Poems of Jonathan Swift, Volume I, ed. W. E. Browning (Project Gutenberg #14353, 1910).
- Stanza 3, line 3 The infamous piratical bookseller. See Pope's Works, passim.--W. E. B.
- Stanza 4, line 1 The original copy of Pope's celebrated translation of Homer (preserved in the British Museum) is almost entirely written on the covers of letters, and sometimes between the lines of the letters themselves.
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