Epigram
Friend Rundle fell, with grievous bump,Upon his reverential rump.Poor rump! thou hadst been better sped,Hadst thou been join'd to Boulter's head;A head, so weighty and profound,Would needs have kept thee from the ground.
Words in this poem
- rundle n.
- A round; a step of a ladder; a rung. Duppa. [E. round. Cf. Rondle.]
- bump v. t.
- To strike, as with or against anything large or solid; to thump; as, to bump the head against a wall. [Cf. W. pwmp round mass, pwmpiaw to thump, bang, and E. bum, v.i., boom to roar.]
- needs adv.
- Of necessity; necessarily; indispensably; -- often with must, and equivalent to of need. [Orig. gen. of need, used as an adverb. Cf. - wards.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Epigram 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, in Poems, Volume II (1710–1745), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13621, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems/epigram.html, id L09356.
Form and metre
Epigram is 6 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%). 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 AABBCC bumpA · rumpA · spedB · headB · profoundC · groundC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Friend Rundle fell, with grievous bump, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Upon his reverential rump. | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Poor rump! thou hadst been better sped, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Hadst thou been join'd to Boulter's head; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| A head, so weighty and profound, | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Would needs have kept thee from the ground. | 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.