Epigram by Mr. Bowyer, Intended to Be Placed Under the Head of Gulliver. 1733
"Here learn from moral truth and wit refined,How vice and folly have debased mankind;Strong sense and humour arm in virtue's cause;Thus her great votary vindicates her laws:While bold and free the glowing colours strike;Blame not the picture, if the picture's like."
Words in this poem
- humour n.
- Moisture, especially, the moisture or fluid of animal bodies, as the chyle, lymph, etc.; as, the humors of the eye, etc. [OE. humour, OF. humor, umor, F. humeur, L. humor, umor, moisture, fluid, fr. humere, umere, to be moist. See Humid.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Epigram by Mr. Bowyer, Intended to Be Placed Under the Head of Gulliver. 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, Epigram by Mr. Bowyer, Intended to Be Placed Under the Head of Gulliver. 1733, in On Poetry: A Rhapsody, and Other Poems (1727), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #14353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems-vol1/epigram-by-mr-bowyer-intended-to-be-placed-under-the-head-of-gulliver-1733.html, id L25627.
Form and metre
Epigram by Mr. Bowyer, Intended to Be Placed Under the Head of Gulliver. 1733 is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 refinedA · mankindA · causeB · lawsB · strikeC · likeC
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| "Here learn from moral truth and wit refined, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| How vice and folly have debased mankind; | 10 | ···/˘·˘/// |
| Strong sense and humour arm in virtue's cause; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Thus her great votary vindicates her laws: | 11 | ···/˘˘/˘··· |
| While bold and free the glowing colours strike; | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Blame not the picture, if the picture's like." | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
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.