The Triumph of Man
I plod and peer amid mean sounds and shapes,I hunt for dusty gain and dreary praise,And slowly pass the dismal grinning days,Monkeying each other like a line of apes.
What care? There was one hour amid all theseWhen I had stripped off like a tawdry gloveMy starriest hopes and wants, for very loveOf time and desolate eternities.
Yea, for one great hour's triumph, not in meNor any hope of mine did I rejoice,But in a meadow game of girls and boysSome sunset in the centuries to be.
Words in this poem
- plod v. i.
- To travel slowly but steadily; to trudge. [Gf. Gael. plod a clod, a pool; also, to strike or pelt with a clod or clods.]
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- dreary a.
- Sorrowful; distressful. [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
- dismal a.
- Fatal; ill-omened; unlucky. [Formerly a noun; e. g., "I trow it was in the dismalle." Chaucer. Of uncertain origin; but perh. (as suggested by Skeat) from OF. disme, F. dîme, tithe, the phr]
- tawdry a.
- Bought at the festival of St. Audrey. [Said to be corrupted from Saint Audrey, or Auldrey, meaning Saint Ethelreda, implying therefore, originally, bought at the fair of St. Audrey, where laces and g]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Triumph of Man is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Wild Knight and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #12037; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: G. K. Chesterton, The Triumph of Man, in The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12037, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/chesterton-wild-knight/the-triumph-of-man.html, id L17135.
Form and metre
The Triumph of Man is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 90% 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. 42% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABBA shapesA · praiseB · daysB · apesA
- 2 ABBA theseA · gloveB · loveB · eternitiesA
- 3 A--A meA · rejoice · boys · beA
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 plod and peer amid mean sounds and shapes, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| I hunt for dusty gain and dreary praise, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And slowly pass the dismal grinning days, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Monkeying each other like a line of apes. | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| What care? There was one hour amid all these | 10 | ·····/˘/·· |
| When I had stripped off like a tawdry glove | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| My starriest hopes and wants, for very love | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Of time and desolate eternities. | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘˘ |
| Yea, for one great hour's triumph, not in me | 10 | ····//˘··· |
| Nor any hope of mine did I rejoice, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| But in a meadow game of girls and boys | 10 | ···/······ |
| Some sunset in the centuries to be. | 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.