A Lament
O paths whereon wild grasses wave!O valleys! hillsides! forests hoar!Why are ye silent as the grave?For One, who came, and comes no more!
Why is thy window closed of late?And why thy garden in its sear?O house! where doth thy master wait?I only know he is not here.
Good dog! thou watchest; yet no handWill feed thee. In the house is none.Whom weepest thou? child! My father. AndO wife! whom weepest thou? The Gone.
Where is he gone? Into the dark.--O sad, and ever-plaining surge!Whence art thou? From the convict-bark.And why thy mournful voice? A dirge.
Words in this poem
- whereon adv.
- On which; -- used relatively; as, the earth whereon we live.
- hoar v. t.
- To become moldy or musty. [AS. harian to grow gray.]
- dirge n.
- A piece of music of a mournful character, to accompany funeral rites; a funeral hymn. [Contraction of Lat. dirige, direct thou (imperative of dirigere), the first word of a funeral hymn (Lat. transl. of Psalm v. 8) beginning, "Dirige, Domine, in c]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Lament is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, the various hands translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Victor Hugo, A Lament, in Poems (1888), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8775, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hugo-poems/a-lament.html, id L26798.
Form and metre
A Lament is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in iambic 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 waveA · hoarB · graveA · moreB
- 2 ABAB lateA · searB · waitA · hereB
- 3 ABAB handA · noneB · andA · goneB
- 4 ABAB darkA · surgeB · barkA · dirgeB
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 iambic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O paths whereon wild grasses wave! | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| O valleys! hillsides! forests hoar! | 8 | ·/˘/·/˘· |
| Why are ye silent as the grave? | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| For One, who came, and comes no more! | 8 | ········ |
| Why is thy window closed of late? | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And why thy garden in its sear? | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| O house! where doth thy master wait? | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I only know he is not here. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Good dog! thou watchest; yet no hand | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Will feed thee. In the house is none. | 8 | ········ |
| Whom weepest thou? child! My father. And | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| O wife! whom weepest thou? The Gone. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Where is he gone? Into the dark.-- | 8 | ········ |
| O sad, and ever-plaining surge! | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Whence art thou? From the convict-bark. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And why thy mournful voice? A dirge. | 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.