Envoy
Boys and girls, at slug and snailAnd their kindred look askance.Pay your footing on the nail:Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance.
Words in this poem
- askance adv.
- Sideways; obliquely; with a side glance; with disdain, envy, or suspicion. [Cf. D. schuin, schuins, sideways, schuiven to shove, schuinte slope. Cf. Asquint.]
- fiddler n.
- One who plays on a fiddle or violin. [AS. fi.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
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-7.html, id L12366.
Form and metre
Envoy is 4 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABAB. The lines average 7.5 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 snailA · askanceB · nailA · danceB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Boys and girls, at slug and snail | 7 | ······· |
| And their kindred look askance. | 8 | ··/˘˘·˘/ |
| Pay your footing on the nail: | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Fate’s a fiddler, Life’s a dance. | 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.