Penances
These are my happy penances. To makeBeauty without a covenant; to takeMeasure of time only because I knowThat in death’s market-place I still shall oweService to beauty that shall not be done;To know that beauty’s doctrine is begunAnd makes a close in sacrifice; to findIn beauty’s courts the unappeasable mind.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Penances 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, Penances, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/penances.html, id L23017.
Form and metre
Penances is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDD makeA · takeA · knowB · oweB · doneC · begunC · findD · mindD
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| These are my happy penances. To make | 10 | ···/˘/˘˘·· |
| Beauty without a covenant; to take | 10 | /˘···/˘˘·· |
| Measure of time only because I know | 10 | /˘··/˘···· |
| That in death’s market-place I still shall owe | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Service to beauty that shall not be done; | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| To know that beauty’s doctrine is begun | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And makes a close in sacrifice; to find | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| In beauty’s courts the unappeasable mind. | 11 | ·/˘········ |
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.