Onions
Come, follow me by the smell,Here are delicate onions to sell;I promise to use you well.They make the blood warmer,You'll feed like a farmer;For this is every cook's opinion,No savoury dish without an onion;But, lest your kissing should be spoil'd,Your onions must be thoroughly boil'd:Or else you may spareYour mistress a share,The secret will never be known:She cannot discoverThe breath of her lover,But think it as sweet as her own.
Words in this poem
- savoury n.
- An aromatic labiate plant (Satireia hortensis), much used in cooking; -- also called summer savory. [F. savorée; cf. It. santoreggia, satureja, L. satureia,]
- discover v. i.
- To discover or show one's self.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Onions 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, Onions, in On Poetry: A Rhapsody, and Other Poems (1727), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #14353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems-vol1/onions.html, id L24580.
Form and metre
Onions is 15 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See 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 AAA----BBCCDEED smellA · sellA · wellA · warmer · farmer · opinion · onion · spoil'dB · boil'dB · spareC · shareC · knownD · discoverE · loverE · ownD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Come, follow me by the smell, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| Here are delicate onions to sell; | 8 | ··/˘/˘·· |
| I promise to use you well. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| They make the blood warmer, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| You'll feed like a farmer; | 6 | ····/˘ |
| For this is every cook's opinion, | 9 | ···/˘·˘/˘ |
| No savoury dish without an onion; | 10 | ········/˘ |
| But, lest your kissing should be spoil'd, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Your onions must be thoroughly boil'd: | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Or else you may spare | 5 | ····· |
| Your mistress a share, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| The secret will never be known: | 8 | ·/˘·/˘·· |
| She cannot discover | 6 | ·˘/˘/˘ |
| The breath of her lover, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| But think it as sweet as her own. | 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.