Foresight
An "actors' cemetery"! SureThe devil never tiresOf planning places to procureThe sticks to feed his fires.
Words in this poem
- cemetery n.
- A place or ground set apart for the burial of the dead; a graveyard; a churchyard; a necropolis.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Foresight 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, Foresight, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/foresight.html, id L28061.
Form and metre
Foresight is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See 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 ABAB sureA · tiresB · procureA · firesB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| An "actors' cemetery"! Sure | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘· |
| The devil never tires | 7 | ·/˘/˘/˘ |
| Of planning places to procure | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| The sticks to feed his fires. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
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.