The Superseded
AS newer comers crowd the fore,We drop behind.—We who have laboured long and soreTimes out of mind,And keen are yet, must not regretTo drop behind.
Yet there are of us some who grieveTo go behind;Staunch, strenuous souls who scarce believeTheir fires declined,And know none cares, remembers, sparesWho go behind.
’Tis not that we have unforetoldThe drop behind;We feel the new must oust the oldIn every kind;But yet we think, must we, must we,Too, drop behind?
Words in this poem
- laboured a.
- Bearing marks of labor and effort; elaborately wrought; not easy or natural; as, labored poetry; a labored style.
- strenuous a.
- Eagerly pressing or urgent; zealous; ardent; earnest; bold; valiant; intrepid; as, a strenuous advocate for national rights; a strenuous reformer; a strenuous defender of his country.
- scarce a.
- Not plentiful or abundant; in small quantity in proportion to the demand; not easily to be procured; rare; uncommon. [OE. scars, OF. escars, eschars, LL. scarpsus, for L. excerptus, p. p. of excerpere to pick out, and hence to contract, to shorten; ex (see Ex-) + carpere. See C]
- oust v. t.
- To take away; to remove. [OF. oster, F. ôter, prob. fr. L. obstare to oppose, hence, to forbid, take away. See Obstacle, and cf. Ouster.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Superseded is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of the Past and the Present, Project Gutenberg ebook #3168; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hardy, The Superseded, in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3168, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-past-and-present/the-superseded.html, id L16909.
Form and metre
The Superseded is 18 lines in 3 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.2 syllables. 39% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABAB-B foreA · behindB · soreA · mindB · regret · behindB
- 2 ABAB-B grieveA · behindB · believeA · declinedB · spares · behindB
- 3 ABAB-B unforetoldA · behindB · oldA · kindB · we · behindB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| AS newer comers crowd the fore, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| We drop behind. | 4 | ···· |
| —We who have laboured long and sore | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Times out of mind, | 4 | ···· |
| And keen are yet, must not regret | 8 | ······˘/ |
| To drop behind. | 4 | ···· |
| Yet there are of us some who grieve | 8 | ········ |
| To go behind; | 4 | ···· |
| Staunch, strenuous souls who scarce believe | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Their fires declined, | 5 | ·/˘˘/ |
| And know none cares, remembers, spares | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Who go behind. | 4 | ···· |
| ’Tis not that we have unforetold | 9 | ········· |
| The drop behind; | 4 | ···· |
| We feel the new must oust the old | 8 | ········ |
| In every kind; | 5 | ·/˘˘· |
| But yet we think, must we, must we, | 8 | ········ |
| Too, drop behind? | 4 | ···· |
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.