Douglass
Ah, Douglass, we have fall'n on evil days,Such days as thou, not even thou didst know,When thee, the eyes of that harsh long agoSaw, salient, at the cross of devious ways,And all the country heard thee with amaze.Not ended then, the passionate ebb and flow,The awful tide that battled to and fro;We ride amid a tempest of dispraise.
Now, when the waves of swift dissension swarm,And Honor, the strong pilot, lieth stark,Oh, for thy voice high-sounding o'er the storm,For thy strong arm to guide the shivering bark,The blast-defying power of thy form,To give us comfort through the lonely dark.
Words in this poem
- didst
- , the 2d pers. sing. imp. of Do.
- devious a.
- Out of a straight line; winding; varying from directness; as, a devious path or way. [L. devius; de + via way. See Viaduct.]
- amaze v. t.
- To bewilder; to stupefy; to bring into a maze. [Pref. a- + maze.]
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
- dispraise v. t.
- To withdraw praise from; to notice with disapprobation or some degree of censure; to disparage; to blame. [OE. dispreisen, OF. desprisier, despreisier, F. dépriser; pref. des- (L. dis-) + prisier, F. priser, to prize, praise. See Praise, and cf. Disprize, Depreciate.]
- stark adv.
- Wholly; entirely; absolutely; quite; as, stark mind.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Douglass is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, Project Gutenberg ebook #18338; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Paul Laurence Dunbar, Douglass, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/douglass.html, id L00771.
Form and metre
Douglass is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.7 syllables. 7% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ABBAABBA daysA · knowB · agoB · waysA · amazeA · flowB · froB · dispraiseA
- 2 ABABAB swarmA · starkB · stormA · barkB · formA · darkB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Ah, Douglass, we have fall'n on evil days, | 10 | ·/˘˘····/· |
| Such days as thou, not even thou didst know, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| When thee, the eyes of that harsh long ago | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Saw, salient, at the cross of devious ways, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And all the country heard thee with amaze. | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| Not ended then, the passionate ebb and flow, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| The awful tide that battled to and fro; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| We ride amid a tempest of dispraise. | 10 | ··˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| Now, when the waves of swift dissension swarm, | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| And Honor, the strong pilot, lieth stark, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘·· |
| Oh, for thy voice high-sounding o'er the storm, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| For thy strong arm to guide the shivering bark, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| The blast-defying power of thy form, | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| To give us comfort through the lonely dark. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
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.