Oysters
Charming oysters I cry:My masters, come buy,So plump and so fresh,So sweet is their flesh,No Colchester oysterIs sweeter and moister:Your stomach they settle,And rouse up your mettle:They'll make you a dadOf a lass or a lad;And madam your wifeThey'll please to the life;Be she barren, be she old,Be she slut, or be she scold,Eat my oysters, and lie near her,She'll be fruitful, never fear her.
Words in this poem
- lass n.
- A youth woman; a girl; a sweetheart. [OE. lasse; prob. of Celtic origin; cf. W. llodes girl, fem. of llawd lad. (Lad a youth.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Oysters 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, Oysters, in On Poetry: A Rhapsody, and Other Poems (1727), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #14353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems-vol1/oysters.html, id L24581.
Form and metre
Oysters is 16 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 AABBCCDDEEFFGGHH cryA · buyA · freshB · fleshB · oysterC · moisterC · settleD · mettleD · dadE · ladE · wifeF · lifeF · oldG · scoldG · herH · herH
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Charming oysters I cry: | 6 | /˘/˘·· |
| My masters, come buy, | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| So plump and so fresh, | 5 | ····· |
| So sweet is their flesh, | 5 | ····· |
| No Colchester oyster | 6 | ····/˘ |
| Is sweeter and moister: | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Your stomach they settle, | 6 | ·/˘·/˘ |
| And rouse up your mettle: | 6 | ····/˘ |
| They'll make you a dad | 5 | ····· |
| Of a lass or a lad; | 6 | ······ |
| And madam your wife | 5 | ·/˘·· |
| They'll please to the life; | 5 | ····· |
| Be she barren, be she old, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Be she slut, or be she scold, | 7 | ······· |
| Eat my oysters, and lie near her, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| She'll be fruitful, never fear her. | 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.