Written at London
By poets we are well assuredThat love, alas! can ne'er be cured;A complicated heap of ills,Despising boluses and pills.Ah! Chloe, this I find is true,Since first I gave my heart to you.Now, by your cruelty hard bound,I strain my guts, my colon wound.Now jealousy my grumbling tripesAssaults with grating, grinding gripes.When pity in those eyes I view,My bowels wambling make me spew.When I an amorous kiss design'd,I belch'd a hurricane of wind.Once you a gentle sigh let fall;Remember how I suck'd it all;What colic pangs from thence I felt,Had you but known, your heart would melt,Like ruffling winds in cavern pent,Till Nature pointed out a vent.How have you torn my heart to piecesWith maggots, humours, and caprices!By which I got the hemorrhoids;And loathsome worms my anus voids.Whene'er I hear a rival named,I feel my body all inflamed;Which, breaking out in boils and blains,With yellow filth my linen stains;Or, parch'd with unextinguish'd thirst,Small-beer I guzzle till I burst;And then I drag a bloated corpus,Swell'd with a dropsy, like a porpus;When, if I cannot purge or stale,I must be tapp'd to fill a pail.
Words in this poem
- pent p. p.
- Penned or shut up; confined; -- often with up. [From Pen, v. t.]
- hemorrhoids n.
- Livid and painful swellings formed by the dilation of the blood vessels around the margin of, or within, the anus, from which blood or mucus is occasionally discharged; piles; emerods. [The sing. [L. haemorrhoidae, pl., Gr. hémorroïdes, hémorrhoïdes. See Rheum.]
- guzzle v. i.
- To swallow liquor greedily; to drink much or frequently. [OP. gosillier, prob. orig., to pass through the throat; akin to F. gosier throat; cf. It. gozzo a bird's crop.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Written at London 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, Written at London, in On Poetry: A Rhapsody, and Other Poems (1727), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #14353, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems-vol1/written-at-london.html, id L24536.
Form and metre
Written at London is 34 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 94% of the lines: 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--EEFFGGHHIIJJKKLLMMNNOOPP assuredA · curedA · illsB · pillsB · trueC · youC · boundD · woundD · tripes · gripes · viewE · spewE · design'dF · windF · fallG · allG · feltH · meltH · pentI · ventI · piecesJ · capricesJ · hemorrhoidsK · voidsK · namedL · inflamedL · blainsM · stainsM · thirstN · burstN · corpusO · porpusO · staleP · pailP
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 |
|---|---|---|
| By poets we are well assured | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| That love, alas! can ne'er be cured; | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| A complicated heap of ills, | 8 | ·/˘·˘··· |
| Despising boluses and pills. | 8 | ˘/˘/˘˘·· |
| Ah! Chloe, this I find is true, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Since first I gave my heart to you. | 8 | ········ |
| Now, by your cruelty hard bound, | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| I strain my guts, my colon wound. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Now jealousy my grumbling tripes | 8 | ·/˘·/˘˘· |
| Assaults with grating, grinding gripes. | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| When pity in those eyes I view, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| My bowels wambling make me spew. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| When I an amorous kiss design'd, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| I belch'd a hurricane of wind. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Once you a gentle sigh let fall; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Remember how I suck'd it all; | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| What colic pangs from thence I felt, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Had you but known, your heart would melt, | 8 | ········ |
| Like ruffling winds in cavern pent, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Till Nature pointed out a vent. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| How have you torn my heart to pieces | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| With maggots, humours, and caprices! | 9 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘ |
| By which I got the hemorrhoids; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And loathsome worms my anus voids. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Whene'er I hear a rival named, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| I feel my body all inflamed; | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Which, breaking out in boils and blains, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| With yellow filth my linen stains; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Or, parch'd with unextinguish'd thirst, | 8 | ········ |
| Small-beer I guzzle till I burst; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And then I drag a bloated corpus, | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Swell'd with a dropsy, like a porpus; | 9 | ···/˘··/˘ |
| When, if I cannot purge or stale, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| I must be tapp'd to fill a pail. | 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.