V. Another, at Chester
My landlord is civil,But dear as the d--l:Your pockets grow emptyWith nothing to tempt ye;The wine is so sour,'Twill give you a scour,The beer and the aleAre mingled with stale.The veal is such carrion,A dog would be weary on.All this I have felt,For I live on a smelt.
About this text
V. Another, at Chester 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, V. Another, at Chester, in On Poetry: A Rhapsody, and Other Poems (1727), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #14353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems-vol1/v-another-at-chester.html, id L25631.
Form and metre
V. Another, at Chester is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 83% of the lines. The metre is anapaestic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 82%).
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in anapaestic dimeter.
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 AA--BBCCDDEE civilA · lA · empty · ye · sourB · scourB · aleC · staleC · carrionD · onD · feltE · smeltE
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 anapaestic dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| My landlord is civil, | 6 | ·/··/˘ |
| But dear as the d--l: | 6 | ······ |
| Your pockets grow empty | 6 | ·/˘·/˘ |
| With nothing to tempt ye; | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| The wine is so sour, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| 'Twill give you a scour, | 6 | ····/˘ |
| The beer and the ale | 5 | ····· |
| Are mingled with stale. | 6 | ·/˘˘·· |
| The veal is such carrion, | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| A dog would be weary on. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| All this I have felt, | 5 | ····· |
| For I live on a smelt. | 6 | ······ |
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.