Woollen-Draper in Dublin, Whose Sign Was the Golden Fleece
Jason, the valiant prince of Greece,From Colchis brought the Golden Fleece;We comb the wool, refine the stuff,For modern Jasons, that's enough.Oh! could we tame yon watchful dragon,Old Jason would have less to brag on.
Words in this poem
- valiant a.
- Vigorous in body; strong; powerful; as, a valiant fencer. [OE. valiant, F. vaillant, OF. vaillant, valant, originally p. pr. of OF. & F. valoir to be worth, L. valere to be strong. See Wield, and cf. Avail, Convalesce, ]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Woollen-Draper in Dublin, Whose Sign Was the Golden Fleece 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, Woollen-Draper in Dublin, Whose Sign Was the Golden Fleece, in On Poetry: A Rhapsody, and Other Poems (1727), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #14353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems-vol1/woollen-draper-in-dublin-whose-sign-was-the-golden-fleece.html, id L24593.
Form and metre
Woollen-Draper in Dublin, Whose Sign Was the Golden Fleece is 6 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 94%).
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 AABBCC greeceA · fleeceA · stuffB · enoughB · dragonC · onC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Jason, the valiant prince of Greece, | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| From Colchis brought the Golden Fleece; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| We comb the wool, refine the stuff, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| For modern Jasons, that's enough. | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| Oh! could we tame yon watchful dragon, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Old Jason would have less to brag on. | 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.