Captives
Some came in chainsUnrepentent but tired.Too tired but to stumble.Thinking and hating were finishedThinking and fighting were finishedRetreating and hoping were finished.Cures thus a long campaign,Making death easy.
Words in this poem
- campaign n.
- An open field; a large, open plain without considerable hills. [F. campagne, It. campagna, fr. L. Campania the level country about Naples, fr. campus field. See Camp, and cf. Champaign, Champagne.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Captives is in the public domain. This text is taken from Three Stories & Ten Poems (poems only), Project Gutenberg ebook #59603; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ernest Hemingway, Captives, in Ten Poems (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #59603, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hemingway-ten-poems/captives.html, id L27121.
Form and metre
Captives is 8 lines in a single stanza.
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 ---AAA-- chains · tired · stumble · finishedA · finishedA · finishedA · campaign · easy
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Some came in chains | 4 | ···· |
| Unrepentent but tired. | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Too tired but to stumble. | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| Thinking and hating were finished | 8 | /˘·/˘·/˘ |
| Thinking and fighting were finished | 8 | /˘·/˘·/˘ |
| Retreating and hoping were finished. | 9 | ˘/˘·/˘·/˘ |
| Cures thus a long campaign, | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Making death easy. | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
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.