To Quilca, a Country-House of Dr. Sheridan, in No Very Good Repair
Let me thy properties explain:A rotten cabin, dropping rain:Chimneys, with scorn rejecting smoke;Stools, tables, chairs, and bedsteads broke.Here elements have lost their uses,Air ripens not, nor earth produces:In vain we make poor Sheelah toil,Fire will not roast, nor water boil.Through all the valleys, hills, and plains,The goddess Want, in triumph reigns;And her chief officers of state,Sloth, Dirt, and Theft, around her wait.
Words in this poem
- broke v. i.
- To transact business for another. Brome. [See Broker, and cf. Brook.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Quilca, a Country-House of Dr. Sheridan, in No Very Good Repair 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 Quilca, a Country-House of Dr. Sheridan, in No Very Good Repair, in Cadenus and Vanessa, and Other Poems (1710–1745), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13621, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/swift-poems/to-quilca-a-country-house-of-dr-sheridan-in-no-very-good-repair.html, id L20669.
Form and metre
To Quilca, a Country-House of Dr. Sheridan, in No Very Good Repair is 12 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 91%).
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 AABBCCDDEEFF explainA · rainA · smokeB · brokeB · usesC · producesC · toilD · boilD · plainsE · reignsE · stateF · waitF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Let me thy properties explain: | 8 | ···/˘˘˘/ |
| A rotten cabin, dropping rain: | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| Chimneys, with scorn rejecting smoke; | 8 | /˘··˘/˘· |
| Stools, tables, chairs, and bedsteads broke. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Here elements have lost their uses, | 9 | ·/˘˘···/˘ |
| Air ripens not, nor earth produces: | 9 | ·/˘···˘/˘ |
| In vain we make poor Sheelah toil, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Fire will not roast, nor water boil. | 8 | /····/˘· |
| Through all the valleys, hills, and plains, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The goddess Want, in triumph reigns; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And her chief officers of state, | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| Sloth, Dirt, and Theft, around her wait. | 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.