Praise the generous gods for giving
PRAISE the generous gods for givingIn a world of wrath and strifeWith a little time for living,Unto all the joy of life.
At whatever source we drink it,Art or love or faith or wine,In whatever terms we think it,It is common and divine.
Praise the high gods, for in givingThis to man, and this alone,They have made his chance of livingShine the equal of their own.
Words in this poem
- generous a.
- Of honorable birth or origin; highborn. [F. généreux, fr. L. generous of noble birth, noble, excellent, magnanimous, fr. genus birth, race: cf. It. generoso. See 2d Gender.]
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Praise the generous gods for giving 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, Praise the generous gods for giving, in Poems (1898), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1568, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/henley-poems/praise-the-generous-gods-for-giving.html, id L12389.
Form and metre
Praise the generous gods for giving is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 91%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.6 syllables. 4 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic tetrameter.
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 givingA · strifeB · livingA · lifeB
- 2 ABAB itA · wineB · itA · divineB
- 3 ABAB givingA · aloneB · livingA · ownB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| PRAISE the generous gods for giving | 9 | ··/˘˘··/˘ |
| In a world of wrath and strife | 7 | ······· |
| With a little time for living, | 8 | ··/˘··/˘ |
| Unto all the joy of life. | 7 | ······· |
| At whatever source we drink it, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| Art or love or faith or wine, | 7 | ······· |
| In whatever terms we think it, | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| It is common and divine. | 7 | ··/˘·˘/ |
| Praise the high gods, for in giving | 8 | ······/˘ |
| This to man, and this alone, | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| They have made his chance of living | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Shine the equal of their own. | 7 | ··/˘··· |
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.