Estranged
No one was with me there--Happy I was--alone;Yet from the sunshine suddenlyA joy was gone.
A bird in an empty houseSad echoes makes to ring,Flitting from room to roomOn restless wing:
Till from its shades he flies,And leaves forlorn and dimThe narrow solitudesSo strange to him.
So, when with fickle heartI joyed in the passing day,A presence my mood estrangedWent grieved away.
Words in this poem
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
- flitting n.
- A flying with lightness and celerity; a fluttering.
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Estranged is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Listeners and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #22569; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walter de la Mare, Estranged, in The Listeners and Other Poems (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #22569, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/de-la-mare-listeners/estranged.html, id L17080.
Form and metre
Estranged is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 5.8 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 44% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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.
- 2 -A-A house · ringA · room · wingA
- 3 -A-A flies · dimA · solitudes · himA
- 4 -A-A heart · dayA · estranged · awayA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| No one was with me there-- | 6 | ······ |
| Happy I was--alone; | 6 | /˘··˘/ |
| Yet from the sunshine suddenly | 7 | ···/·/˘ |
| A joy was gone. | 4 | ···· |
| A bird in an empty house | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Sad echoes makes to ring, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Flitting from room to room | 6 | /˘···· |
| On restless wing: | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Till from its shades he flies, | 6 | ······ |
| And leaves forlorn and dim | 6 | ··˘/·· |
| The narrow solitudes | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| So strange to him. | 4 | ···· |
| So, when with fickle heart | 6 | ···/˘· |
| I joyed in the passing day, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| A presence my mood estranged | 7 | ·/˘··˘/ |
| Went grieved away. | 5 | ··˘˘/ |
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.