Private Property
All fly--yet who is misanthrope?--The actual men and things that passJostling, to wither as the grassSo soon: and (be it heaven's hope,Or poetry's kaleidoscope,Or love or wine, at feast, at mass)Each owns a paradise of glassWhere never a yearning heliotropePursues the sun's ascent or slope;For the sun dreams there, and no time is or was.
Like fauns embossed in our domain,We look abroad, and our calm eyesMark how the goatish gods of painRevel; and if by grim surpriseThey break into our paradise,Patient we build its beauty up again.
Words in this poem
- misanthrope n.
- A hater of mankind; a misanthropist. [Gr. misanthrope. Cf. Miser.]
- goatish a.
- Characteristic of a goat; goatlike.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Private Property 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, Private Property, in The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24364, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/huxley-defeat-of-youth/private-property.html, id L22023.
Form and metre
Private Property is 16 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 ABBAABBAA- misanthropeA · passB · grassB · hopeA · kaleidoscopeA · massB · glassB · heliotropeA · slopeA · was
- 2 ABAB-A domainA · eyesB · painA · surpriseB · paradise · againA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| All fly--yet who is misanthrope?-- | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The actual men and things that pass | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Jostling, to wither as the grass | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| So soon: and (be it heaven's hope, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Or poetry's kaleidoscope, | 8 | ·/˘˘˘/˘· |
| Or love or wine, at feast, at mass) | 8 | ········ |
| Each owns a paradise of glass | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Where never a yearning heliotrope | 8 | ·/·/˘/˘· |
| Pursues the sun's ascent or slope; | 8 | ˘/··˘/·· |
| For the sun dreams there, and no time is or was. | 11 | ··········· |
| Like fauns embossed in our domain, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘/ |
| We look abroad, and our calm eyes | 8 | ··˘/·/·· |
| Mark how the goatish gods of pain | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Revel; and if by grim surprise | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| They break into our paradise, | 8 | ····//˘· |
| Patient we build its beauty up again. | 10 | /˘···/˘·˘/ |
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.