Envoy
Prince, in one common overthrowThe Hero tumbles with the Thrall:As dust that drives, as straws that blow,Into the night go one and all.
About this text
Envoy is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #1568; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: W. E. Henley, Envoy, in Poems (1898), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1568, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/henley-poems/envoy-4.html, id L12360.
Form and metre
Envoy is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 8.0 syllables.
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 overthrowA · thrallB · blowA · allB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Prince, in one common overthrow | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| The Hero tumbles with the Thrall: | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| As dust that drives, as straws that blow, | 8 | ········ |
| Into the night go one and all. | 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.