A sickness of this world it most occasions
A sickness of this world it most occasionsWhen best men die;A wishfulness their far conditionTo occupy.
A chief indifference, as foreignA world must beThemselves forsake contented,For Deity.
About this text
A sickness of this world it most occasions is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Project Gutenberg ebook #12242; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emily Dickinson, A sickness of this world it most occasions, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/a-sickness-of-this-world-it-most-occasions.html, id L19062.
Form and metre
A sickness of this world it most occasions is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic dimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in iambic dimeter.
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 occasions · dieA · condition · occupyA
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 dimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A sickness of this world it most occasions | 11 | ·/˘·····˘/˘ |
| When best men die; | 4 | ···· |
| A wishfulness their far condition | 9 | ······˘/˘ |
| To occupy. | 4 | ·/˘· |
| A chief indifference, as foreign | 9 | ··˘/˘˘·/˘ |
| A world must be | 4 | ···· |
| Themselves forsake contented, | 7 | ˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| For Deity. | 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.