 | The Poems of St. George Tucker of Williamsburg, Virginia 1752-1827 |  |
[1 The charge to battle should Bellona sound]
[_]
On July 30, 1791, John Page wrote Tucker, “But now for the epigram I promised in the beginning of the scrawl. It is an impromptu occasioned by Mrs. Page's telling me that Webster in one of his lectures said that the word wound was improperly pronounced woond, unless applied as in the epigram—for after writing one I ran out the thought as you say I always do in a second, a Peter Pindaric. Take them both here they are:
When hostile arms assail, and you cry zounds!The deep infected strokes you may call wounds.
But when by gentle glows a lover swoons,
The critic Webster sounds it woonds.
When Mars attacks
With broadsword hacks,
Each frightful gash that's found
Is called a ghastly wound.
When Cupid's darts
Pierce soft hearts
The holes they make
In maid or rake,
Because these die in swoons
Webster says we may call “woonds.”
Tucker replied with these three epigrams:
The charge to battle should Bellona sound
Each well-aimed stroke inflicts a ghastly wound,
But pierced by Cupid's dart when Streppon swooned,
Cries critic Webster softly—“What a woond!”
Each well-aimed stroke inflicts a ghastly wound,
But pierced by Cupid's dart when Streppon swooned,
Cries critic Webster softly—“What a woond!”
A battle fought—cries critic Webster “Zounds!
What blood and slaughter—what disastrous wounds!”
But pierced by Cupid's dart when Streppon swooned
He whispers softly—“bless me! what a woond!”
What blood and slaughter—what disastrous wounds!”
But pierced by Cupid's dart when Streppon swooned
He whispers softly—“bless me! what a woond!”
54
Noah Webster's Rule of Pronouncing Simplified
When Daphne, jilted at her toilet swooned,No tender heart was sunk with such a wound;
But when she pricked her finger, friends around
Exclaimed with horror; bless us! what a wound!
| The Poems of St. George Tucker of Williamsburg, Virginia 1752-1827 | |