Interior
THE gaunt brown wallsLook infinite in their decent meanness.There is nothing of home in the noisy kettle,The fulsome fire.
The atmosphereSuggests the trail of a ghostly druggist.Dressings and lint on the long, lean table—Whom are they for?
The patients yawn,Or lie as in training for shroud and coffin.A nurse in the corridor scolds and wrangles.It’s grim and strange.
Far footfalls clank.The bad burn waits with his head unbandaged.My neighbour chokes in the clutch of chloral . . .O, a gruesome world!
Words in this poem
- gaunt a.
- Attenuated, as with fasting or suffering; lean; meager; pinched and grim. [Cf. Norw. gand a thin pointed stick, a tall and thin man, and W. gwan weak.]
- kettle n.
- A metallic vessel, with a wide mouth, often without a cover, used for heating and boiling water or other liguids. Kettle pins, ninepins; skittles. Shelton. [OE. ketel; cf. AS. cetel, cetil, cytel; akin to D. kjedel, G. kessel, OHG. chezzil, Icel. ketill, SW. kittel, Dan. kjedel, Goth. katils; all perh. fr. L. catill]
- fulsome a.
- Full; abundant; plenteous; not shriveled. [Full, a. + -some.]
- ghostly a.
- Relating to the soul; not carnal or secular; spiritual; as, a ghostly confessor. [OE. gastlich, gostlich, AS. gastlic. See Ghost.]
- druggist n.
- One who deals in drugs; especially, one who buys and sells drugs without compounding them; also, a pharmaceutist or apothecary. [F. droguiste, fr. drogue. See 3d Drug.]
- corridor n.
- A gallery or passageway leading to several apartments of a house. [F., fr. Itt. corridpore, or Sp. corredor; prop., a runner, hence, a running or long line, a gallery, fr. L. currere to run. See Course.]
- clank n.
- A sharp, brief, ringing sound, made by a collision of metallic or other sonorous bodies; -- usually expressing a duller or less resounding sound than clang, and a deeper and stronger sound than clink. [Akin to clink, and of imitative origin; cf. G. klang sound, D. klank. Cf. Clang.]
- neighbour v. i.
- To dwell in the vicinity; to be a neighbor, or in the neighborhood; to be near.
- chloral n.
- A colorless oily liquid, CCl3.CHO, of a pungent odor and harsh taste, obtained by the action of chlorine upon ordinary or ethyl alcohol. [Chlorine + alcohol.]
- gruesome
- , Grue"some, a. Etym: [From a word akin to Dan. gru horror, terror + -some; cf. D. gruwzaam, G. grausam. Cf. Grisly.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Interior 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, Interior, in Poems (1898), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1568, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/henley-poems/interior.html, id L12324.
Form and metre
Interior is 16 lines in 4 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.2 syllables. 8 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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.
- 3 AA-- yawnA · coffinA · wrangles · strange
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 |
|---|---|---|
| THE gaunt brown walls | 4 | ···· |
| Look infinite in their decent meanness. | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| There is nothing of home in the noisy kettle, | 12 | ··/˘····/˘/˘ |
| The fulsome fire. | 5 | ·/˘/˘ |
| The atmosphere | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Suggests the trail of a ghostly druggist. | 10 | ˘/····/˘/˘ |
| Dressings and lint on the long, lean table— | 10 | /˘······/˘ |
| Whom are they for? | 4 | ···· |
| The patients yawn, | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Or lie as in training for shroud and coffin. | 11 | ····/˘···/˘ |
| A nurse in the corridor scolds and wrangles. | 10 | ····/˘··/˘ |
| It’s grim and strange. | 4 | ···· |
| Far footfalls clank. | 4 | ·/·· |
| The bad burn waits with his head unbandaged. | 10 | ·········· |
| My neighbour chokes in the clutch of chloral . . . | 10 | ·/˘·····/˘ |
| O, a gruesome world! | 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.