A Variation
Youth rambles on life’s arid mount,And strikes the rock, and finds the vein,And brings the water from the fount,--The fount which shall not flow again.
The man mature with labor chopsFor the bright stream a channel grand,And sees not that the sacred dropsRan off and vanished out of hand.
And then the old man totters nigh,And feebly rakes among the stones.The mount is mute, the channel dry;And down he lays his weary bones.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- chops n.
- The jaws; also, the fleshy parts about the mouth. [See Chop a jaw.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Variation is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #54985; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Matthew Arnold, A Variation, in Poems (1849–1867), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #54985, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/arnold-poems/a-variation.html, id L07022.
Form and metre
A Variation is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ABAB mountA · veinB · fountA · againB
- 2 ABAB chopsA · grandB · dropsA · handB
- 3 ABAB nighA · stonesB · dryA · bonesB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Youth rambles on life’s arid mount, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And strikes the rock, and finds the vein, | 8 | ········ |
| And brings the water from the fount,-- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The fount which shall not flow again. | 8 | ······˘/ |
| The man mature with labor chops | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| For the bright stream a channel grand, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And sees not that the sacred drops | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Ran off and vanished out of hand. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And then the old man totters nigh, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And feebly rakes among the stones. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The mount is mute, the channel dry; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And down he lays his weary bones. | 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.