Lawyer
As from the tripod of Apollo,Hear from my desk the words that follow:"Some, by philosophers misled,Must honour you alive and dead;And such as know what Greece has writ,Must taste your irony and wit;While most that are, or would be great,Must dread your pen, your person hate;And you on Drapier's hill must lie,And there without a mitre die."
Words in this poem
- tripod n.
- Any utensil or vessel, as a stool, table, altar, caldron, etc., supported on three feet. [L. tripus, -odis, Gr. Tri-) + Foot, and cf. Tripos, Trivet.]
- honour n.
- Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. [OE. honor, honour, onour, onur, OF. honor, onor, honur, onur, honour, onour, F. honneur, fr. L. honor, honos.]
- mitre n.
- A covering for the head, worn on solemn occasions by church dignitaries. It has been made in many forms, the present form being a lofty cap with two points or peaks. Fairholt.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lawyer 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, Lawyer, in On Poetry: A Rhapsody, and Other Poems (1727), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #14353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems-vol1/lawyer-2.html, id L24545.
Form and metre
Lawyer is 10 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 89%).
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 AABBCCDDEE apolloA · followA · misledB · deadB · writC · witC · greatD · hateD · lieE · dieE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| As from the tripod of Apollo, | 9 | ···/··˘/˘ |
| Hear from my desk the words that follow: | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| "Some, by philosophers misled, | 8 | ··˘/˘˘˘/ |
| Must honour you alive and dead; | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| And such as know what Greece has writ, | 8 | ········ |
| Must taste your irony and wit; | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| While most that are, or would be great, | 8 | ········ |
| Must dread your pen, your person hate; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And you on Drapier's hill must lie, | 8 | ········ |
| And there without a mitre die." | 8 | ·····/˘· |
Notes from the edition 1
The notes to the Poems of Jonathan Swift, Volume I, ed. W. E. Browning (Project Gutenberg #14353, 1910).
- Line 9 In the county of Armagh.--F.
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.