Epilogue to Asolando
At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,When you set your fancies free,Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned--Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,--Pity me?
Oh, to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!What had I on earth to doWith the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel--Being--who?
One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward,Never doubted clouds would break,Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,Sleep to wake.
No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work timeGreet the unseen with a cheer!Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be,"Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed--fight on, fare everThere as here!"
Words in this poem
- mawkish a.
- Apt to cause satiety or loathing; nauseous; disgusting. [Orig., maggoty. See Mawk.]
- aimless a.
- Without aim or purpose; as, an aimless life.
- noonday n.
- Midday; twelve o'clock in the day; noon.
- unseen a.
- Not seen or discovered.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Epilogue to Asolando is in the public domain. This text is taken from Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning, Project Gutenberg ebook #28041; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Robert Browning, Epilogue to Asolando, in Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning (1864), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #28041, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/browning-selections/epilogue-to-asolando.html, id L25135.
Form and metre
Epilogue to Asolando is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. The metre is trochaic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in trochaic hexameter.
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 -A--A time · freeA · imprisoned · so · meA
- 2 -A--A mistaken · doA · unmanly · drivel · whoA
- 3 -A--A forward · breakA · triumph · better · wakeA
- 4 -A--A time · cheerA · be · ever · hereA
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 trochaic hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, | 12 | ··/···/˘···· |
| When you set your fancies free, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned-- | 12 | ·········˘/˘ |
| Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, | 12 | ············ |
| --Pity me? | 3 | /˘· |
| Oh, to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! | 12 | ·········˘/˘ |
| What had I on earth to do | 7 | ······· |
| With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? | 12 | ··/˘··/˘···· |
| Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel | 12 | ··/˘/˘/˘··/˘ |
| --Being--who? | 3 | /˘· |
| One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, | 11 | ··/······/˘ |
| Never doubted clouds would break, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, | 11 | /····/˘··/˘ |
| Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, | 12 | ······/˘··/˘ |
| Sleep to wake. | 3 | ··· |
| No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work time | 12 | ··/˘··/˘···· |
| Greet the unseen with a cheer! | 7 | ··˘/··· |
| Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, | 12 | ··/˘····/˘·· |
| "Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed--fight on, fare ever | 10 | ········/˘ |
| There as here!" | 3 | ··· |
On this poem
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.