Mendicants
Bleak, in dark rags of clouds, the day begins,That passed so splendidly but yesterday,Wrapped in magnificence of gold and gray,And poppy and rose. Now, burdened as with sins,Their wildness clad in fogs, like coats of skins,Tattered and streaked with rain; gaunt, clogged with clay,The mendicant Hours take their somber wayWestward o'er Earth, to which no sunray wins.Their splashing sandals ooze; their foosteps drip,Puddle and brim with moisture; their sad hairIs tagged with haggard drops, that with their eyes'Slow streams are blent; each sullen fingertipRivers; while round them, in the grief-drenched airWearies the wind of their perpetual sighs.
Words in this poem
- splendidly adv.
- In a splendid manner; magnificently.
- magnificence n.
- The act of doing what magnificent; the state or quality of being magnificent. Acts xix. 27. [F. magnificence, L. magnificentia. See Magnific.]
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- gaunt a.
- Attenuated, as with fasting or suffering; lean; meager; pinched and grim. [Cf. Norw. gand a thin pointed stick, a tall and thin man, and W. gwan weak.]
- drip v. i.
- To fall in drops; as, water drips from the eaves. [Akin to LG. drippen, Dan. dryppe, from a noun. See Drop.]
- haggard a.
- Wild or intractable; disposed to break away from duty; untamed; as, a haggard or refractory hawk. Shak [F. hagard; of German origin, and prop. meaning, of the hegde or woods, wild, untamed. See Hedge, 1st Haw, and -ard.]
- blent p. p.
- Blinded. Also (Chaucer), 3d sing. pres. Blindeth.
- sullen a.
- Lonely; solitary; desolate. Wyclif (Job iii. 14). [OE. solein, solain, lonely, sullen; through Old French fr. (assumed) LL. solanus solitary, fr. L. solus alone. See Sole, a.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mendicants is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #7796; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Madison Julius Cawein, Mendicants, in Poems (1911), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #7796, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cawein-poems/mendicants.html, id L10970.
Form and metre
Mendicants is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAABBACDECDE, the pattern of the Italian sonnet. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 83% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other Italian sonnets, 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 ABBAABBACDECDE beginsA · yesterdayB · grayB · sinsA · skinsA · clayB · wayB · winsA · dripC · hairD · eyesE · fingertipC · airD · sighsE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Bleak, in dark rags of clouds, the day begins, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| That passed so splendidly but yesterday, | 10 | ···/˘˘·/˘· |
| Wrapped in magnificence of gold and gray, | 10 | ··˘/˘˘···· |
| And poppy and rose. Now, burdened as with sins, | 11 | ·/˘···/˘··· |
| Their wildness clad in fogs, like coats of skins, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Tattered and streaked with rain; gaunt, clogged with clay, | 10 | /˘········ |
| The mendicant Hours take their somber way | 10 | ·/˘˘/··/˘· |
| Westward o'er Earth, to which no sunray wins. | 10 | /˘········ |
| Their splashing sandals ooze; their foosteps drip, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Puddle and brim with moisture; their sad hair | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| Is tagged with haggard drops, that with their eyes' | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Slow streams are blent; each sullen fingertip | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Rivers; while round them, in the grief-drenched air | 10 | /˘········ |
| Wearies the wind of their perpetual sighs. | 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.