Complaint of a Poet Manqué
We judge by appearance merely:If I can't think strangely, I can at least look queerly.So I grew the hair so long on my headThat my mother wouldn't know me,Till a woman in a night-club said,As I was passing by,"Hullo, here comes Salome ..."
I looked in the dirty gilt-edged glass,And, oh Salome; there I was--Positively jewelled, half a vampire,With the soul in my eyes hanging dizzilyLike the gatherer of proverbial samphireOver the brink of the crag of sense,Looking down from perilous eminenceInto a gulf of windy night.And there's straw in my tempestuous hair,And I'm not a poet: but never despair!I'll madly live the poems I shall never write.
Words in this poem
- strangely adv.
- As something foreign, or not one's own; in a manner adapted to something foreign and strange.
- queerly adv.
- In a queer or odd manner.
- dizzily adv.
- In a dizzy manner or state.
- brink n.
- The edge, margin, or border of a steep place, as of a precipice; a bank or edge, as of a river or pit; a verge; a border; as, the brink of a chasm. Also Fig. [Dan. brink edge, verge; akin to Sw. brink declivity, hill, Icel. brekka; cf. LG. brink a grassy hill, W. bryn hill, bryncyn hillock.]
- crag n.
- The neck or throat [A form of craw: cf. D. kraag neck, collar, G. kragen. See Craw.]
- madly adv.
- In a mad manner; without reason or understanding; wildly. [From Mad, a.]
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Complaint of a Poet Manqué is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #24364; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Aldous Huxley, Complaint of a Poet Manqué, in The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24364, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/huxley-defeat-of-youth/complaint-of-a-poet-manqu.html, id L22030.
Form and metre
Complaint of a Poet Manqué is 18 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 75%).
See other poems in iambic pentameter.
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- merely · queerly · headA · meB · saidA · byB · salome
- 2 -----AABCCB glass · was · vampire · dizzily · samphire · senseA · eminenceA · nightB · hairC · despairC · writeB
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| We judge by appearance merely: | 8 | ···˘/˘/˘ |
| If I can't think strangely, I can at least look queerly. | 13 | ····/˘·····/˘ |
| So I grew the hair so long on my head | 10 | ·········· |
| That my mother wouldn't know me, | 8 | ··/˘/˘·· |
| Till a woman in a night-club said, | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| As I was passing by, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| "Hullo, here comes Salome ..." | 7 | ˘/··˘/˘ |
| I looked in the dirty gilt-edged glass, | 10 | ··˘··/˘··· |
| And, oh Salome; there I was-- | 8 | ··˘/˘··· |
| Positively jewelled, half a vampire, | 10 | /˘˘˘/˘··/˘ |
| With the soul in my eyes hanging dizzily | 11 | ······/˘/˘˘ |
| Like the gatherer of proverbial samphire | 11 | ··/˘·˘/˘˘/˘ |
| Over the brink of the crag of sense, | 9 | ········· |
| Looking down from perilous eminence | 10 | /˘··/˘˘/˘˘ |
| Into a gulf of windy night. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And there's straw in my tempestuous hair, | 10 | ······/˘˘· |
| And I'm not a poet: but never despair! | 10 | ····/˘·/˘/ |
| I'll madly live the poems I shall never write. | 11 | ·/˘··/˘··/· |
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.