Analysis of Advice to the Grub Street Verse-writers

Jonathan Swift 1667 (Dublin) – 1745 (Ireland)



Ye poets ragged and forlorn,
      Down from your garrets haste;
    Ye rhymers, dead as soon as born,
      Not yet consign'd to paste;
     I know a trick to make you thrive;
      O, 'tis a quaint device:
    Your still-born poems shall revive,
      And scorn to wrap up spice.
     Get all your verses printed fair,
     Then let them well be dried;
   And Curll must have a special care
     To leave the margin wide.

Lend these to paper-sparing Pope;
     And when he sets to write,
   No letter with an envelope
     Could give him more delight.

When Pope has fill'd the margins round,
     Why then recall your loan;
   Sell them to Curll for fifty pound,
     And swear they are your own.


Scheme ABABCDCDEFEF GHGH IJIJ
Poetic Form Traditional rhyme
Metre 11010001 111101 1111111 110111 11011111 110101 11110101 011111 11110101 111111 01110101 110101 11110101 011111 1101110 111101 11110101 11111 11111101 011111
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 695
Words 118
Sentences 5
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 12, 4, 4
Lines Amount 20
Letters per line (avg) 24
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 159
Words per stanza (avg) 39
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 20, 2023

36 sec read
82

Jonathan Swift

Jonathan Swift was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. more…

All Jonathan Swift poems | Jonathan Swift Books

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