Life is bitter. All the faces of the years
LIFE is bitter. All the faces of the years,Young and old, are grey with travail and with tears.Must we only wake to toil, to tire, to weep?In the sun, among the leaves, upon the flowers,Slumber stills to dreamy death the heavy hours . . .Let me sleep.
Riches won but mock the old, unable years;Fame’s a pearl that hides beneath a sea of tears;Love must wither, or must live alone and weep.In the sunshine, through the leaves, across the flowers,While we slumber, death approaches though the hours! . . .Let me sleep.
Words in this poem
- dreamy a.
- Abounding in dreams or given to dreaming; appropriate to, or like, dreams; visionary.
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Life is bitter. All the faces of the years 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, Life is bitter. All the faces of the years, in Poems (1898), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1568, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/henley-poems/life-is-bitter-all-the-faces-of-the-years.html, id L12385.
Form and metre
Life is bitter. All the faces of the years is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABCCB. The metre is trochaic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 94%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.7 syllables.
See other poems in trochaic hexameter.
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 AABCCB yearsA · tearsA · weepB · flowersC · hoursC · sleepB
- 2 AABCCB yearsA · tearsA · weepB · flowersC · hoursC · sleepB
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 trochaic hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| LIFE is bitter. All the faces of the years, | 11 | ··/˘··/˘··· |
| Young and old, are grey with travail and with tears. | 11 | ······˘/··· |
| Must we only wake to toil, to tire, to weep? | 11 | ··/˘····/·· |
| In the sun, among the leaves, upon the flowers, | 11 | ··········/ |
| Slumber stills to dreamy death the heavy hours . . . | 11 | /˘··/˘··/˘/ |
| Let me sleep. | 3 | ··· |
| Riches won but mock the old, unable years; | 11 | /˘·····˘/˘· |
| Fame’s a pearl that hides beneath a sea of tears; | 11 | ··········· |
| Love must wither, or must live alone and weep. | 11 | ··/˘···˘/·· |
| In the sunshine, through the leaves, across the flowers, | 11 | ··/····˘/·/ |
| While we slumber, death approaches though the hours! . . . | 11 | ··/˘·˘/˘··/ |
| Let me sleep. | 3 | ··· |
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.