Epigram on Josiah Hort
Lord Pam in the church (you'd you think it) kneel'd down;When told that the Duke was just come to Town--His station despising, unawed by the place,He flies from his God to attend to his Grace.To the Court it was better to pay his devotion,Since God had no hand in his Lordship's promotion.
Words in this poem
- duke n.
- A leader; a chief; a prince. [F. duc, fr. L. dux, ducis, leader, commander, fr. ducere to lead; akin to AS. teón to draw; cf. AS. heretoga (here army) an army leader, general, G. herzog duke]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Epigram on Josiah Hort 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, Epigram on Josiah Hort, in Cadenus and Vanessa, and Other Poems (1710–1745), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13621, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems/epigram-on-josiah-hort.html, id L09382.
Form and metre
Epigram on Josiah Hort is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets. The metre is anapaestic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 11.3 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in rhyming couplets, other poems in anapaestic 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 downA · townA · placeB · graceB · devotionC · promotionC
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 anapaestic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Lord Pam in the church (you'd you think it) kneel'd down; | 11 | ··········· |
| When told that the Duke was just come to Town-- | 10 | ·········· |
| His station despising, unawed by the place, | 11 | ·/˘˘/˘····· |
| He flies from his God to attend to his Grace. | 11 | ······˘/··· |
| To the Court it was better to pay his devotion, | 13 | ·····/˘···˘/˘ |
| Since God had no hand in his Lordship's promotion. | 12 | ·········˘/˘ |
Notes from the edition 1
The notes to the Poems of Jonathan Swift, Volume II (Project Gutenberg #13621).
- Line 1 Pam, the cant name for the knave of clubs, from the French Pamphile. The person here intended was a famous B. known through the whole kingdom by the name of Lord Pam. He was a great enemy to all men of wit and learning, being himself the most ignorant as well as the most vicious P. of all who had ever been honoured with that Title from the days of the Apostles to the present year of the Christian Aera. He was promoted non tam providentia divina quam temporum iniquitate E-scopus. From a note in "The Toast," by Frederick Scheffer, written in Latin verse, done into English by Peregrine O Donald, Dublin and London, 1736.--W. E. B.
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