Lately Published Against Dean Swift, Now Deaf and Infirm
Thy mortal part, ingenious Swift! must die,Thy fame shall reach beyond mortality!How puny whirlings joy at thy decline,Thou darling offspring of the tuneful nine!The noble lion thus, as vigour passes,The fable tells us, is abused by asses.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- mortality n.
- The condition or quality of being mortal; subjection to death or to the necessity of dying. [L. mortalitas: cf. F. mortalité.]
- puny a.
- Imperfectly developed in size or vigor; small and feeble; inferior; petty. [F. puîté younger, later born, OF. puisné; puis afterwards (L. post; see Post-) + né born, L. natus. See Natal, and cf. Puisne.]
- tuneful a.
- Harmonious; melodious; musical; as, tuneful notes.
- vigour v. t.
- To invigorate. Feltham.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lately Published Against Dean Swift, Now Deaf and Infirm 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, Lately Published Against Dean Swift, Now Deaf and Infirm, in Poems, Volume II (1710–1745), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13621, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems/lately-published-against-dean-swift-now-deaf-and-infirm.html, id L09447.
Form and metre
Lately Published Against Dean Swift, Now Deaf and Infirm is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 --AABB die · mortality · declineA · nineA · passesB · assesB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Thy mortal part, ingenious Swift! must die, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘··· |
| Thy fame shall reach beyond mortality! | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| How puny whirlings joy at thy decline, | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
| Thou darling offspring of the tuneful nine! | 10 | ·/˘/···/˘· |
| The noble lion thus, as vigour passes, | 10 | ·/˘/··/˘/˘ |
| The fable tells us, is abused by asses. | 11 | ·/˘···˘/·/˘ |
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.