Will Ever?
Will he ever be weary of wandering,The flaming sun?Ever weary of waning in lovelight,The white still moon?Will ever a shepherd comeWith a crook of simple gold,And lead all the little starsLike lambs to the fold?
Will ever the Wanderer sailFrom over the sea,Up the river of water,To the stones to me?Will he take us all into his ship,Dreaming, and waft us far,To where in the clouds of the WestThe Islands are?
Words in this poem
- waning n.
- The act or process of waning, or decreasing.
- waft v. t.
- To give notice to by waving something; to wave the hand to; to beckon. [Prob. originally imp. & p. p. of wave, v. t. See Wave to waver.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Will Ever? is in the public domain. This text is taken from Peacock Pie, a Book of Rhymes, Project Gutenberg ebook #3753; 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, Will Ever?, in Peacock Pie (1913), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3753, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/de-la-mare-peacock-pie/will-ever.html, id L12628.
Form and metre
Will Ever? is 16 lines in 2 stanzas of 8 lines each. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic trimeter. 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.4 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% 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.
- 1 -----A-A wandering · sun · lovelight · moon · come · goldA · stars · foldA
- 2 -A-A-B-B sail · seaA · water · meA · ship · farB · west · areB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Will he ever be weary of wandering, | 9 | ··/·/˘·/˘ |
| The flaming sun? | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Ever weary of waning in lovelight, | 10 | //˘·/˘···· |
| The white still moon? | 4 | ···· |
| Will ever a shepherd come | 6 | ·/·/˘· |
| With a crook of simple gold, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And lead all the little stars | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Like lambs to the fold? | 5 | ····· |
| Will ever the Wanderer sail | 6 | ·/·/˘· |
| From over the sea, | 5 | ····· |
| Up the river of water, | 7 | ··/˘·/˘ |
| To the stones to me? | 5 | ····· |
| Will he take us all into his ship, | 9 | ········· |
| Dreaming, and waft us far, | 6 | /˘···· |
| To where in the clouds of the West | 8 | ········ |
| The Islands are? | 4 | ·/˘· |
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.