To Carthy
Thy labours, Carthy, long conceal'd from light,Piled in a garret, charm'd the author's sight,But forced from their retirement into day,The tender embryos half unknown decay;Thus lamps which burn'd in tombs with silent glare,Expire when first exposed to open air.
Words in this poem
- piled a.
- Having a pile or point; pointed. [From 2d Pile.]
- garret n.
- A turret; a watchtower. [OE. garite, garette, watchtower, place of lookout, OF. garite, also meaning, a place of refuge, F. guérite a place of refuge, donjon, sentinel box, fr. OF. gari]
- glare v. i.
- To shine with a bright, dazzling light. [OE. glaren, gloren; cf. AS. glær amber, LG. glaren to glow or burn like coals, D. gloren to glimmer; prob. akin to E. glass.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Carthy 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, To Carthy, in Poems, Volume II (1710–1745), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13621, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems/to-carthy.html, id L09368.
Form and metre
To Carthy is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables.
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 AABBCC lightA · sightA · dayB · decayB · glareC · airC
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 labours, Carthy, long conceal'd from light, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| Piled in a garret, charm'd the author's sight, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| But forced from their retirement into day, | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| The tender embryos half unknown decay; | 11 | ·/˘/˘··˘/˘/ |
| Thus lamps which burn'd in tombs with silent glare, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Expire when first exposed to open air. | 10 | ˘/··˘/·/˘· |
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.