Another Written upon a Window Where There Was No Writing Before
Thanks to my stars, I once can seeA window here from scribbling free!Here no conceited coxcombs pass,To scratch their paltry drabs on glass;Nor party fool is calling names,Or dealing crowns to George and James.
Words in this poem
- scribbling n.
- The act or process of carding coarsely. Scribbing machine, the machine used for the first carding of wool or other fiber; -- called also scribbler. [See 1st Scribble.]
- conceited a.
- Endowed with fancy or imagination.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Another Written upon a Window Where There Was No Writing Before 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, Another Written upon a Window Where There Was No Writing Before, in On Poetry: A Rhapsody, and Other Poems (1727), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #14353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems-vol1/another-written-upon-a-window-where-there-was-no-writing-bef.html, id L24588.
Form and metre
Another Written upon a Window Where There Was No Writing Before is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
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 AABBCC seeA · freeA · passB · glassB · namesC · jamesC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Thanks to my stars, I once can see | 8 | ········ |
| A window here from scribbling free! | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Here no conceited coxcombs pass, | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| To scratch their paltry drabs on glass; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Nor party fool is calling names, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Or dealing crowns to George and James. | 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.