Epilogue
Come tell us, you that travel farWith brave or shabby merchandise,Have you saluted any starThat goes uncourtiered in the skies?
Do you remember leaf or wingOr brook the willows leant along,Or any small familiar thingThat passed you as you went along?
Or does the trade that is your lustDrive you as yoke-beasts driven apace,Making the world a road of dustFrom market-place to market-place?
Your traffic in the grain, the wine,In purple and in cloth of gold,In treasure of the field and mine,In fables of the poets told,--
But have you laughed the wine-cups dryAnd on the loaves of plenty fed,And walked, with all your banners high,In gold and purple garmented?
And do you know the songs you sellAnd cry them out along the way?And is the profit that you tellAfter your travel day by day
Sinew and sap of life, or husk--Dead coffer-ware or kindled brain?And do you gather in the duskTo make your heroes live again?
If the grey dust is over all,And stars and leaves and wings forgot,And your blood holds no festival--Go out from us; we need you not.
But if you are immoderate men,Zealots of joy, the salt and stingAnd savour of life upon you--thenWe call you to our counselling.
And we will hew the holy boughsTo make us level rows of oars,And we will set our shining prowsFor strange and unadventured shores.
Where the great tideways swiftliest runWe will be stronger than the strongAnd sack the cities of the sunAnd spend our booty in a song.
Words in this poem
- shabby a.
- Torn or worn to rage; poor; mean; ragged. [See Shab, n., Scabby, and Scab.]
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- lust v. i.
- To list; to like. [AS. lystan. See Lust, n., and cf. List to choose.]
- apace adv.
- With a quick pace; quick; fast; speedily. [Pref. a- + pace. OE. a pas at a walk, in which a is the article. See Pace.]
- garmented p. a.
- Having on a garment; attired; enveloped, as with a garment.
- sinew n.
- A tendon or tendonous tissue. See Tendon. [OE. sinewe, senewe, AS. sinu, seonu; akin to D. zenuw, OHG. senawa, G. sehne, Icel. sin, Sw. sena, Dan. sene; cf. Skr. snava. sq. root290.]
- savour v. t.
- To perceive by the smell or the taste; hence, to perceive; to note. B. Jonson.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Epilogue 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, Epilogue, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/epilogue.html, id L23135.
Form and metre
Epilogue is 44 lines in 11 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 farA · merchandiseB · starA · skiesB
- 2 ABAB wingA · alongB · thingA · alongB
- 3 ABAB lustA · apaceB · dustA · placeB
- 4 ABAB wineA · goldB · mineA · toldB
- 5 ABAB dryA · fedB · highA · garmentedB
- 6 ABAB sellA · wayB · tellA · dayB
- 7 ABAB huskA · brainB · duskA · againB
- 8 ABAB allA · forgotB · festivalA · notB
- 9 ABAB menA · stingB · thenA · counsellingB
- 10 ABAB boughsA · oarsB · prowsA · shoresB
- 11 ABAB runA · strongB · sunA · songB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Come tell us, you that travel far | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| With brave or shabby merchandise, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Have you saluted any star | 8 | ··˘/˘/˘· |
| That goes uncourtiered in the skies? | 8 | ········ |
| Do you remember leaf or wing | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Or brook the willows leant along, | 9 | ···/·/˘˘/ |
| Or any small familiar thing | 8 | ·/˘·˘/˘· |
| That passed you as you went along? | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Or does the trade that is your lust | 8 | ········ |
| Drive you as yoke-beasts driven apace, | 8 | ·····/˘/ |
| Making the world a road of dust | 8 | /˘······ |
| From market-place to market-place? | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Your traffic in the grain, the wine, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| In purple and in cloth of gold, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| In treasure of the field and mine, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| In fables of the poets told,-- | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| But have you laughed the wine-cups dry | 8 | ········ |
| And on the loaves of plenty fed, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And walked, with all your banners high, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In gold and purple garmented? | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
| And do you know the songs you sell | 8 | ········ |
| And cry them out along the way? | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| And is the profit that you tell | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| After your travel day by day | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Sinew and sap of life, or husk-- | 8 | /˘······ |
| Dead coffer-ware or kindled brain? | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| And do you gather in the dusk | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To make your heroes live again? | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| If the grey dust is over all, | 8 | ········ |
| And stars and leaves and wings forgot, | 8 | ······˘/ |
| And your blood holds no festival-- | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Go out from us; we need you not. | 8 | ········ |
| But if you are immoderate men, | 9 | ····˘/˘˘· |
| Zealots of joy, the salt and sting | 8 | /˘······ |
| And savour of life upon you--then | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| We call you to our counselling. | 9 | ····/˘/˘˘ |
| And we will hew the holy boughs | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To make us level rows of oars, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And we will set our shining prows | 8 | ····//˘· |
| For strange and unadventured shores. | 8 | ········ |
| Where the great tideways swiftliest run | 9 | ········· |
| We will be stronger than the strong | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And sack the cities of the sun | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And spend our booty in a song. | 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.