Some Verses of an Imperfect Copy, Designed for a Friend, on His Translation of Ovid's 'Fasti'
Rome's holy-days you tell, as if a guestWith the old Romans you were wont to feast.Numa's religion, by themselves believed,Excels the true, only in show received.They made the nations round about them bow,With their dictators taken from the plough;Such power has justice, faith, and honesty!The world was conquer'd by morality.Seeming devotion does but gild a knave,That's neither faithful, honest, just, nor brave;But where religion does with virtue join,It makes a hero like an angel shine.
Words in this poem
- knave n.
- A boy; especially, a boy servant. Wyclif. [OE., boy, servant, knave, AS. cnafa boy, youth; cf. AS. cnapa boy, youth, D. kna, G. knabe boy, knappe esquire, Icel. knapi, Sw. knape esquire, knäfvel knave.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Some Verses of an Imperfect Copy, Designed for a Friend, on His Translation of Ovid's 'Fasti' is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham, Project Gutenberg ebook #12322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edmund Waller, Some Verses of an Imperfect Copy, Designed for a Friend, on His Translation of Ovid's 'Fasti', in Cooper's Hill, and Other Poems (1645–1668), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waller-denham/some-verses-of-an-imperfect-copy-designed-for-a-friend-on-his-translation-of-ovid-s-fasti.html, id L26332.
Form and metre
Some Verses of an Imperfect Copy, Designed for a Friend, on His Translation of Ovid's 'Fasti' is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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--CC-- guest · feast · believedA · receivedA · bowB · ploughB · honesty · morality · knaveC · braveC · join · shine
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Rome's holy-days you tell, as if a guest | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| With the old Romans you were wont to feast. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Numa's religion, by themselves believed, | 10 | ··˘/˘·˘/˘/ |
| Excels the true, only in show received. | 10 | ˘/··/˘··˘/ |
| They made the nations round about them bow, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| With their dictators taken from the plough; | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| Such power has justice, faith, and honesty! | 11 | ·/˘·/˘··/˘˘ |
| The world was conquer'd by morality. | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| Seeming devotion does but gild a knave, | 10 | /˘˘/˘····· |
| That's neither faithful, honest, just, nor brave; | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| But where religion does with virtue join, | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| It makes a hero like an angel shine. | 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.