Vanished at Cock-Crow
"I've found the secret of your charm," I said,Expounding with complacency my guess.Alas! the charm, even as I named it, fled,For all its secret was unconsciousness.
Words in this poem
- complacency n.
- Calm contentment; satisfaction; gratification. [LL. complacentia: cf. F. complaisance. See Complacent, and cf. Complaisance.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Vanished at Cock-Crow 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, Vanished at Cock-Crow, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/vanished-at-cock-crow.html, id L28078.
Form and metre
Vanished at Cock-Crow 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 saidA · guessB · fledA · unconsciousnessB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "I've found the secret of your charm," I said, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Expounding with complacency my guess. | 10 | ˘/˘·˘/˘˘·· |
| Alas! the charm, even as I named it, fled, | 10 | ˘/··/····· |
| For all its secret was unconsciousness. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘˘ |
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.