Worn Out
You bid me hold my peaceAnd dry my fruitless tears,Forgetting that I bearA pain beyond my years.
You say that I should smileAnd drive the gloom away;I would, but sun and smilesHave left my life's dark day.
All time seems cold and void,And naught but tears remain;Life's music beats for meA melancholy strain.
I used at first to hope,But hope is past and, gone;And now without a rayMy cheerless life drags on.
Like to an ash-stained hearthWhen all its fires are spent;Like to an autumn woodBy storm winds rudely shent,--
So sadly goes my heart,Unclothed of hope and peace;It asks not joy again,But only seeks release.
Words in this poem
- fruitless a.
- Lacking, or not bearing, fruit; barren; destitute of offspring; as, a fruitless tree or shrub; a fruitless marriage.
- shent
- obs. 3d pers. sing. pres. of Shend, for shendeth.
- sadly adv.
- Wearily; heavily; firmly.
- unclothed a.
- Etym: [Properly p. p. of unclothe.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Worn Out 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, Worn Out, in The Complete Poems (1893–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #18338, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dunbar-poems/worn-out.html, id L00897.
Form and metre
Worn Out is 24 lines in 6 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.1 syllables. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 -A-A peace · tearsA · bear · yearsA
- 2 -A-A smile · awayA · smiles · dayA
- 3 -A-A void · remainA · me · strainA
- 4 -A-A hope · goneA · ray · onA
- 5 -A-A hearth · spentA · wood · shentA
- 6 -A-A heart · peaceA · again · releaseA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| You bid me hold my peace | 6 | ······ |
| And dry my fruitless tears, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Forgetting that I bear | 6 | ˘/˘··· |
| A pain beyond my years. | 6 | ······ |
| You say that I should smile | 6 | ······ |
| And drive the gloom away; | 6 | ····˘/ |
| I would, but sun and smiles | 6 | ······ |
| Have left my life's dark day. | 6 | ······ |
| All time seems cold and void, | 6 | ······ |
| And naught but tears remain; | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Life's music beats for me | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| A melancholy strain. | 6 | ·/˘·˘· |
| I used at first to hope, | 6 | ······ |
| But hope is past and, gone; | 6 | ······ |
| And now without a ray | 6 | ······ |
| My cheerless life drags on. | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Like to an ash-stained hearth | 6 | ······ |
| When all its fires are spent; | 6 | ···/·· |
| Like to an autumn wood | 6 | ···/˘· |
| By storm winds rudely shent,-- | 6 | ···/˘· |
| So sadly goes my heart, | 6 | ·/˘··· |
| Unclothed of hope and peace; | 6 | ˘/···· |
| It asks not joy again, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| But only seeks release. | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
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.