Epigram on Wood's Brass Money
Carteret was welcomed to the shoreFirst with the brazen cannon's roar;To meet him next the soldier comes,With brazen trumps and brazen drums;Approaching near the town he hearsThe brazen bells salute his ears:But when Wood's brass began to sound,Guns, trumpets, drums, and bells, were drown'd.
Words in this poem
- trumpets n.
- A plant (Sarracenia flava) with long, hollow leaves.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Epigram on Wood's Brass Money 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 Wood's Brass Money, in Cadenus and Vanessa, and Other Poems (1710–1745), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13621, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems/epigram-on-wood-s-brass-money.html, id L09326.
Form and metre
Epigram on Wood's Brass Money is 8 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 94%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 shoreA · roarA · comesB · drumsB · hearsC · earsC · soundD · drown'dD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Carteret was welcomed to the shore | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| First with the brazen cannon's roar; | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| To meet him next the soldier comes, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| With brazen trumps and brazen drums; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Approaching near the town he hears | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| The brazen bells salute his ears: | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| But when Wood's brass began to sound, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| Guns, trumpets, drums, and bells, were drown'd. | 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.