The Pessimist
Life's bed is full of crumbs and rice,No roses float on my lagoon;There are no fingers, white and nice,To rub my head with scented ice,Or feed me with a spoon.
I think of all the days gone by,Replete with black and blue regret;No comets light my glaucous sky,My tears are hardly ever dry,I never can forget!
I see the yellow dog, Desire,That strains against the lead of Hope,With lilac eyes and lips of fire,As all in vain he strives to tireThe hand that holds the rope.
I see the kisses of the past,Like lambkins dying in the snow,The honeymoon that did not last,The tinted youth that flew so fast,And all this vale of woe.
So, raising high my raucous cry,I ask (and Fates no answer give),Why am I pre-ordained to die?O cruel Fortune, tell me, whyAm I allowed to live?
Words in this poem
- lagoon n.
- A shallow sound, channel, pond, or lake, especially one into which the sea flows; as, the lagoons of Venice. [It. or Sp. laguna, L. lacuna ditch, pool, pond,lacus lake. See Lake, and cf. Lacuna.]
- replete a.
- Filled again; completely filled; full; charged; abounding. [L. repletus, p. p. of replere to fill again, fill up; pref. re- re- + plere to fill, akin to plenus full: cf. F. replet corpulent. See Plenty, Replenish.]
- glaucous a.
- Of a sea-green color; of a dull green passing into grayish blue.
- honeymoon n.
- The first month after marriage.
- vale n.
- A tract of low ground, or of land between hills; a valley. [OE. val, F. val, L. vallis; perhaps akin to Gr. Avalanche, Vail to lower, Valley.]
- raucous a.
- Hoarse; harsh; rough; as, a raucous, thick tone. [L. raucus.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Pessimist is in the public domain. This text is taken from Verse and Worse, Project Gutenberg ebook #36702; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Harry Graham, The Pessimist, in Verse and Worse (1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #36702, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/graham-verse-and-worse/the-pessimist.html, id L23348.
Form and metre
The Pessimist is 25 lines in 5 stanzas of 5 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 97%).
See 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 ABAAB riceA · lagoonB · niceA · iceA · spoonB
- 2 ABAAB byA · regretB · skyA · dryA · forgetB
- 3 ABAAB desireA · hopeB · fireA · tireA · ropeB
- 4 ABAAB pastA · snowB · lastA · fastA · woeB
- 5 ABAAB cryA · giveB · dieA · whyA · liveB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Life's bed is full of crumbs and rice, | 8 | ········ |
| No roses float on my lagoon; | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| There are no fingers, white and nice, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| To rub my head with scented ice, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Or feed me with a spoon. | 6 | ······ |
| I think of all the days gone by, | 8 | ········ |
| Replete with black and blue regret; | 8 | ˘/····˘/ |
| No comets light my glaucous sky, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| My tears are hardly ever dry, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| I never can forget! | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| I see the yellow dog, Desire, | 9 | ···/˘·˘/˘ |
| That strains against the lead of Hope, | 8 | ········ |
| With lilac eyes and lips of fire, | 9 | ·/·····/˘ |
| As all in vain he strives to tire | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| The hand that holds the rope. | 6 | ······ |
| I see the kisses of the past, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Like lambkins dying in the snow, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The honeymoon that did not last, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The tinted youth that flew so fast, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And all this vale of woe. | 6 | ······ |
| So, raising high my raucous cry, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| I ask (and Fates no answer give), | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Why am I pre-ordained to die? | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| O cruel Fortune, tell me, why | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Am I allowed to live? | 7 | ··˘/˘·· |
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.