By Dr. Swift
FROM India's burning clime I'm brought,With cooling gales like zephyrs fraught.Not Iris, when she paints the sky,Can show more different hues than I;Nor can she change her form so fast,I'm now a sail, and now a mast.I here am red, and there am green,A beggar there, and here a queen.I sometimes live in house of hair,And oft in hand of lady fair.I please the young, I grace the old,And am at once both hot and cold.Say what I am then, if you can,And find the rhyme, and you're the man.
Words in this poem
- clime n.
- A climate; a tract or region of the earth. See Climate. [L. clima. See Climate.]
- cooling a.
- Adapted to cool and refresh; allaying heat.
- fraught n.
- A freight; a cargo. [OE.fraight, fraght; akin to Dan. fragt, Sw. frakt, D. vracht, G. fracht, cf. OHG. fr merit, reward; perh. from corresponding to E. for + The root of E. own. Cf.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
By Dr. Swift 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, By Dr. Swift, in Cadenus and Vanessa, and Other Poems (1710–1745), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13621, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems/by-dr-swift.html, id L09274.
Form and metre
By Dr. Swift is 14 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 90%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables.
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 AABBCCDDEEFFGG broughtA · fraughtA · skyB · iB · fastC · mastC · greenD · queenD · hairE · fairE · oldF · coldF · canG · manG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| FROM India's burning clime I'm brought, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| With cooling gales like zephyrs fraught. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Not Iris, when she paints the sky, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Can show more different hues than I; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Nor can she change her form so fast, | 8 | ········ |
| I'm now a sail, and now a mast. | 8 | ········ |
| I here am red, and there am green, | 8 | ········ |
| A beggar there, and here a queen. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| I sometimes live in house of hair, | 8 | ·˘/····· |
| And oft in hand of lady fair. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I please the young, I grace the old, | 8 | ········ |
| And am at once both hot and cold. | 8 | ········ |
| Say what I am then, if you can, | 8 | ········ |
| And find the rhyme, and you're the man. | 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.