Carthy Knocked Out Some Teeth from His News-Boy
I must confess that I was somewhat warm,I broke his teeth, but where's the mighty harm?My work he said could ne'er afford him meat,And teeth are useless where there's nought to eat!
Words in this poem
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Carthy Knocked Out Some Teeth from His News-Boy 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, Carthy Knocked Out Some Teeth from His News-Boy, in Cadenus and Vanessa, and Other Poems (1710–1745), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13621, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems/carthy-knocked-out-some-teeth-from-his-news-boy.html, id L09367.
Form and metre
Carthy Knocked Out Some Teeth from His News-Boy is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines. The lines average 9.6 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets.
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 --AA warm · harm · meatA · eatA
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I must confess that I was somewhat warm, | 10 | ··˘/···//· |
| I broke his teeth, but where's the mighty harm? | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| My work he said could ne'er afford him meat, | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| And teeth are useless where there's nought to eat! | 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.