The Common Lot
When youth and summer-time are gone,And age puts quiet garlands on,And in the speculative eyeThe fires of emulation die,But as to-day our time shall beTrembling upon eternity,While, still inconstant in debate,We shall on revelation wait,And age as youth will daily planThe sailing of the caravan.
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
The Common Lot 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, The Common Lot, in Poems, 1908-1919 (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #51575, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/drinkwater-poems/the-common-lot.html, id L23008.
Form and metre
The Common Lot is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 80% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AABBB-CCDD goneA · onA · eyeB · dieB · beB · eternity · debateC · waitC · planD · caravanD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When youth and summer-time are gone, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And age puts quiet garlands on, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And in the speculative eye | 8 | ···/˘˘˘· |
| The fires of emulation die, | 8 | ·/··˘/˘· |
| But as to-day our time shall be | 8 | ····/··· |
| Trembling upon eternity, | 9 | /˘˘··˘/˘˘ |
| While, still inconstant in debate, | 8 | ··˘/˘·˘/ |
| We shall on revelation wait, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| And age as youth will daily plan | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The sailing of the caravan. | 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.