An Inscription
Intended for a compartment in Dr. Swift's monument, designed byCunningham, on College Green, Dublin.
Say, to the Drapier's vast unbounded fame,What added honours can the sculptor give?None.--'Tis a sanction from the Drapier's nameMust bid the sculptor and his marble live.
Words in this poem
- sculptor n.
- One who sculptures; one whose occupation is to carve statues, or works of sculpture. [L. sculptor, fr. sculpere, sculptum, to carve; cf. scalpere to cut, carve, scratch, and Gr. sculpteur.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
An Inscription is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #13621; 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, An Inscription, in Cadenus and Vanessa, and Other Poems (1710–1745), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13621, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems/an-inscription.html, id L09452.
Form and metre
An Inscription is 6 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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.
- 2 ABAB fameA · giveB · nameA · liveB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Intended for a compartment in Dr. Swift's monument, designed by | 16 | ˘/˘··˘/˘···/˘˘/· |
| Cunningham, on College Green, Dublin. | 9 | /˘··/˘·/˘ |
| Say, to the Drapier's vast unbounded fame, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| What added honours can the sculptor give? | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| None.--'Tis a sanction from the Drapier's name | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Must bid the sculptor and his marble live. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
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.