Nature's Answer
Is't returned, as 'twas sent? Is't no worse for the wear?Think first, what you are! Call to mind what you were!I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope.Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair?Make out the invent'ry; inspect, compare!Then die--if die you dare!
Words in this poem
- lethargy n.
- Morbid drowsiness; continued or profound sleep, from which a person can scarcely be awaked. [F. léthargie, L. letgargia, Gr. Lethe.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Nature's Answer is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Coleridge, Project Gutenberg ebook #8208; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Nature's Answer, in Poems of Coleridge (1796–1817), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8208, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coleridge-poems/nature-s-answer.html, id L00388.
Form and metre
Nature's Answer is 7 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.6 syllables.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 A-BBAAA wearA · were · hopeB · scopeB · despairA · compareA · dareA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Is't returned, as 'twas sent? Is't no worse for the wear? | 12 | ·˘/········· |
| Think first, what you are! Call to mind what you were! | 11 | ··········· |
| I gave you innocence, I gave you hope, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair? | 9 | ˘/···/˘˘/ |
| Make out the invent'ry; inspect, compare! | 10 | ······˘/˘/ |
| Then die--if die you dare! | 6 | ······ |
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.