Experience
The lords of life, the lords of life,--I saw them passIn their own guise,Like and unlike,Portly and grim,--Use and Surprise,Surface and Dream,Succession swift and spectral Wrong,Temperament without a tongue,And the inventor of the gameOmnipresent without name;--Some to see, some to be guessed,They marched from east to west:Little man, least of all,Among the legs of his guardians tall,Walked about with puzzled look.Him by the hand dear Nature took,Dearest Nature, strong and kind,Whispered, 'Darling, never mind!To-morrow they will wear another face,The founder thou; these are thy race!'
Words in this poem
- portly a.
- Having a dignified port or mien; of a noble appearance; imposing. [From Port demeanor.]
- omnipresent a.
- Present in all places at the same time; ubiquitous; as, the omnipresent Jehovah. Prior. [Omni- + present: cf.F. omniprésent.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Experience is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems Household Edition, Project Gutenberg ebook #12843; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience, in Poems (1847), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12843, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/emerson-poems/experience.html, id L07478.
Form and metre
Experience is 21 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.7 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 10% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 --A--A---BBCCDDEEFFGG life · pass · guiseA · unlike · grim · surpriseA · dream · wrong · tongue · gameB · nameB · guessedC · westC · allD · tallD · lookE · tookE · kindF · mindF · faceG · raceG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The lords of life, the lords of life,-- | 8 | ········ |
| I saw them pass | 4 | ···· |
| In their own guise, | 4 | ···· |
| Like and unlike, | 4 | ··˘/ |
| Portly and grim,-- | 4 | /˘·· |
| Use and Surprise, | 4 | ··˘/ |
| Surface and Dream, | 4 | /˘·· |
| Succession swift and spectral Wrong, | 8 | ˘/˘··/˘· |
| Temperament without a tongue, | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| And the inventor of the game | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Omnipresent without name;-- | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| Some to see, some to be guessed, | 8 | ·······˘ |
| They marched from east to west: | 7 | ··˘···· |
| Little man, least of all, | 6 | /˘···· |
| Among the legs of his guardians tall, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| Walked about with puzzled look. | 8 | ·˘···/˘· |
| Him by the hand dear Nature took, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Dearest Nature, strong and kind, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| Whispered, 'Darling, never mind! | 8 | /˘˘/˘/˘· |
| To-morrow they will wear another face, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| The founder thou; these are thy race!' | 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.