Verses on I Know Not What
My latest tribute here I send,With this let your collection end.Thus I consign you down to fameA character to praise or blame:And if the whole may pass for true,Contented rest, you have your due.Give future time the satisfaction,To leave one handle for detraction.
Words in this poem
- consign v. i.
- To submit; to surrender or yield one's self.
- detraction n.
- A taking away or withdrawing. [F. détraction, L. detractio.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Verses on I Know Not What 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, Verses on I Know Not What, in On Poetry: A Rhapsody, and Other Poems (1727), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #14353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems-vol1/verses-on-i-know-not-what.html, id L25635.
Form and metre
Verses on I Know Not What is 8 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 92%).
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 AABBCCDD sendA · endA · fameB · blameB · trueC · dueC · satisfactionD · detractionD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| My latest tribute here I send, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| With this let your collection end. | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Thus I consign you down to fame | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| A character to praise or blame: | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| And if the whole may pass for true, | 8 | ········ |
| Contented rest, you have your due. | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| Give future time the satisfaction, | 9 | ·/˘···˘/˘ |
| To leave one handle for detraction. | 9 | ···/˘·˘/˘ |
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.