Panic
The eyes of the portraits on the wallLook at me, follow me,Stare incessantly:I take it their glance means nothing at all?--Clearly, oh clearly! Nothing at all ...
Out in the gardens by the lakeThe sleeping peacocks suddenly wake;Out in the gardens, moonlit and forlorn,Each of them sounds his mournful horn:Shrill peals that waver and crack and break.What can have made the peacocks wake?
Words in this poem
- incessantly adv.
- Unceasingly; continually.
- moonlit a.
- Illumined by the moon.
- forlorn a.
- Deserted abandoned; lost. [OE., p.p. of forlesen to lose utterly, AS. forleósan (p.p. forloren); pref. for- + leósan (in comp.) to lose; cf. D. verliezen to lose, G. verlieren, Sw. förlor]
- waver v. i.
- To play or move to and fro; to move one way and the other; hence, to totter; to reel; to swing; to flutter. [OE. waveren, from AS. wæfre wavering, restless. See Wave, v. i.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Panic 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, Panic, in The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24364, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/huxley-defeat-of-youth/panic.html, id L22035.
Form and metre
Panic is 11 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
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 A--AA wallA · me · incessantly · allA · allA
- 2 AABBAA lakeA · wakeA · forlornB · hornB · breakA · wakeA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The eyes of the portraits on the wall | 9 | ····/˘··· |
| Look at me, follow me, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Stare incessantly: | 5 | ·˘/˘˘ |
| I take it their glance means nothing at all? | 10 | ······/˘·· |
| --Clearly, oh clearly! Nothing at all ... | 9 | /˘·/˘/˘·· |
| Out in the gardens by the lake | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The sleeping peacocks suddenly wake; | 9 | ·/˘/·/˘˘· |
| Out in the gardens, moonlit and forlorn, | 10 | ···/˘/··˘/ |
| Each of them sounds his mournful horn: | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Shrill peals that waver and crack and break. | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| What can have made the peacocks wake? | 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.