On the Same
Once Horace fancied from a man,He was transformed to a swan;But Carthy, as from him thou learnest,Has made the man a goose in earnest.
About this text
On the Same 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, On the Same, in Poems, Volume II (1710–1745), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13621, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems/on-the-same-2.html, id L18548.
Form and metre
On the Same is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.5 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 --AA man · swan · learnestA · earnestA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Once Horace fancied from a man, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| He was transformed to a swan; | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| But Carthy, as from him thou learnest, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| Has made the man a goose in earnest. | 9 | ·······/˘ |
Notes from the edition 1
The notes to the Poems of Jonathan Swift, Volume II (Project Gutenberg #13621).
- Line 2 "Jam jam residunt cruribus asperae Pelles, et album mutor in alitem Superne, nascunturque leves Per digitos humerosque plumae." Lib. ii, Carm. xx.
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.