A Lacking Factor
"You acted unwisely," I cried, "as you seeBy the outcome." He calmly eyed me:"When choosing the course of my action," said he,"I had not the outcome to guide me."
Words in this poem
- unwisely adv.
- In an unwise manner; foolishly. [AS. unwislice.]
- outcome n.
- That which comes out of, or follows from, something else; issue; result; consequence; upshot.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Lacking Factor is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shapes of Clay (1903), Project Gutenberg ebook #12658; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ambrose Bierce, A Lacking Factor, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/a-lacking-factor.html, id L28073.
Form and metre
A Lacking Factor is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 AAAA seeA · meA · heA · meA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "You acted unwisely," I cried, "as you see | 11 | ·/˘˘/˘····· |
| By the outcome." He calmly eyed me: | 9 | ··/··/˘·· |
| "When choosing the course of my action," said he, | 11 | ·/˘····/˘·· |
| "I had not the outcome to guide me." | 9 | ····/···· |
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.