The Dog and Thief. 1726
Quoth the thief to the dog, let me into your doorAnd I'll give you these delicate bits.Quoth the dog, I shall then be more villain than you're,And besides must be out of my wits.
Your delicate bits will not serve me a meal,But my master each day gives me bread;You'll fly, when you get what you came here to steal,And I must be hang'd in your stead.
The stockjobber thus from 'Change Alley goes down,And tips you the freeman a wink;Let me have but your vote to serve for the town,And here is a guinea to drink.
Says the freeman, your guinea to-night would be spent!Your offers of bribery cease:I'll vote for my landlord to whom I pay rent,Or else I may forfeit my lease.
From London they come, silly people to chouse,Their lands and their faces unknown:Who'd vote a rogue into the parliament-house,That would turn a man out of his own?
Words in this poem
- quoth v. t.
- Said; spoke; uttered; -- used only in the first and third persons in the past tenses, and always followed by its nominative, the word or words said being the object; as, quoth I. quoth he. [AS.cweedhan, imp cwæedh, pl. cwædon; akin to OS. queedhan, OHG. quethan, quedan, Icel. kveedha, Goth. qiþan. sq. root22. Cf. Bequeath.]
- 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,]
- stockjobber n.
- One who speculates in stocks for gain; one whose occupation is to buy and sell stocks. In England a jobber acts as an intermediary between brokers. [Stock + job.]
- bribery n.
- Robbery; extortion. [OE. brybery rascality, OF. briberie. See Bribe, n.]
- chouse v. t.
- To cheat, trick, defraud; -- followed by of, or out of; as, to chouse one out of his money. [From Turk. cha\'d4sh a messenger or interpreter, one of whom, attached to the Turkish embassy, in 1609 cheated the Turkish merchants resident in England out of ]
- parliament n.
- A parleying; a discussion; a conference. [OE. parlement, F. parlement, fr. parler to speak; cf. LL. parlamentum, parliamentum. See Parley.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Dog and Thief. 1726 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, The Dog and Thief. 1726, in Cadenus and Vanessa, and Other Poems (1710–1745), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13621, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems/the-dog-and-thief-1726.html, id L09337.
Form and metre
The Dog and Thief. 1726 is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is anapaestic common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.7 syllables. 5% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic common measure.
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 ABAB doorA · bitsB · you'reA · witsB
- 2 ABAB mealA · breadB · stealA · steadB
- 3 ABAB downA · winkB · townA · drinkB
- 4 ABAB spentA · ceaseB · rentA · leaseB
- 5 ABAB chouseA · unknownB · houseA · ownB
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 common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Quoth the thief to the dog, let me into your door | 12 | ············ |
| And I'll give you these delicate bits. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Quoth the dog, I shall then be more villain than you're, | 12 | ········/˘·· |
| And besides must be out of my wits. | 9 | ·˘/······ |
| Your delicate bits will not serve me a meal, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| But my master each day gives me bread; | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| You'll fly, when you get what you came here to steal, | 11 | ··········· |
| And I must be hang'd in your stead. | 8 | ········ |
| The stockjobber thus from 'Change Alley goes down, | 10 | ·/˘···/˘·· |
| And tips you the freeman a wink; | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Let me have but your vote to serve for the town, | 11 | ··········· |
| And here is a guinea to drink. | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| Says the freeman, your guinea to-night would be spent! | 12 | ··/˘·/˘····· |
| Your offers of bribery cease: | 8 | ·/˘·/˘˘· |
| I'll vote for my landlord to whom I pay rent, | 11 | ····/······ |
| Or else I may forfeit my lease. | 8 | ····/˘·· |
| From London they come, silly people to chouse, | 11 | ·/˘··/˘/˘·· |
| Their lands and their faces unknown: | 8 | ····/˘˘/ |
| Who'd vote a rogue into the parliament-house, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| That would turn a man out of his own? | 9 | ········· |
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.