Defiance
O wide the way your beauty goes,For all its feigned indifference,And every folly’s path it knows,And every humour of pretence.
But I can be as false as areThe rainbow loves which are your days,And I will gladly go and far,Content with your immediate praise.
Your lips, the shyer lover’s bane,I take with disputation none,And am your kinsman in disdainWhen all is excellently done.
Words in this poem
- humour n.
- Moisture, especially, the moisture or fluid of animal bodies, as the chyle, lymph, etc.; as, the humors of the eye, etc. [OE. humour, OF. humor, umor, F. humeur, L. humor, umor, moisture, fluid, fr. humere, umere, to be moist. See Humid.]
- pretence n.
- The act of laying claim; the claim laid; assumption; pretension. [LL. praetensus, for L. praetentus, p. p. of praetendere. See Pretend, and cf. Tension.]
- gladly adv.
- Preferably; by choice. [From Glad, a.]
- bane v. t.
- To be the bane of; to ruin. Fuller.
- kinsman n.
- A man of the same race or family; one related by blood.
- excellently adv.
- In an excellent manner; well in a high degree.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Defiance is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, 1908-1919, Project Gutenberg ebook #51575; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Drinkwater, Defiance, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/defiance.html, id L23068.
Form and metre
Defiance is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABAB goesA · indifferenceB · knowsA · pretenceB
- 2 ABAB areA · daysB · farA · praiseB
- 3 ABAB baneA · noneB · disdainA · doneB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O wide the way your beauty goes, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| For all its feigned indifference, | 8 | ····˘/˘˘ |
| And every folly’s path it knows, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And every humour of pretence. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| But I can be as false as are | 8 | ········ |
| The rainbow loves which are your days, | 8 | ·/······ |
| And I will gladly go and far, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Content with your immediate praise. | 8 | ˘/··˘/˘· |
| Your lips, the shyer lover’s bane, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| I take with disputation none, | 8 | ···˘//˘· |
| And am your kinsman in disdain | 8 | ···/··˘/ |
| When all is excellently done. | 8 | ···/˘˘˘· |
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.