Mutability
They say there's a high windless world and strange,Out of the wash of days and temporal tide,Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide,AEterna corpora, subject to no change.There the sure suns of these pale shadows move;There stand the immortal ensigns of our war;Our melting flesh fixed Beauty there, a star,And perishing hearts, imperishable Love....
Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile;Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over;Love has no habitation but the heart.Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile,Cling, and are borne into the night apart.The laugh dies with the lips, 'Love' with the lover.
Words in this poem
- windless a.
- Having no wind; calm.
- awhile adv.
- For a while; for some time; for a short time. [Adj. a + while time, interval.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mutability is in the public domain. This text is taken from 1914, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #33902; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rupert Brooke, Mutability, in 1914 and Other Poems (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #33902, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/brooke-1914/mutability.html, id L04744.
Form and metre
Mutability is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 ABBAC--C strangeA · tideB · abideB · changeA · moveC · war · star · loveC
- 2 A-BAB- smileA · over · heartB · awhileA · apartB · lover
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 |
|---|---|---|
| They say there's a high windless world and strange, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Out of the wash of days and temporal tide, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide, | 10 | ····/˘··˘/ |
| AEterna corpora, subject to no change. | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| There the sure suns of these pale shadows move; | 10 | ·······/·· |
| There stand the immortal ensigns of our war; | 11 | ···˘/˘/˘·/· |
| Our melting flesh fixed Beauty there, a star, | 10 | //˘··/˘··· |
| And perishing hearts, imperishable Love.... | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘˘˘· |
| Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over; | 11 | ·····/˘···· |
| Love has no habitation but the heart. | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Cling, and are borne into the night apart. | 10 | ········˘/ |
| The laugh dies with the lips, 'Love' with the lover. | 11 | ·········/˘ |
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.