The Quarry in the Wood
Swiftly deliberate, he seeks the place.A small wind stirs, the copse is bright in the sun:Like quicksilver the shine and shadow runAcross the leaves. A bramble whips his face,The tears spring fast, and through the rainbow mistHe sees a world that wavers like the flameOf a blown candle. Tears of pain and shame,And lips that once had laughed and sung and kissedTrembling in the passion of his sobbing breath!The world a candle shuddering to its death,And life a darkness, blind and utterly voidOf any love or goodness: all deceit,This friendship and this God: all shams destroyed,And truth seen now.Earth fails beneath his feet.
Words in this poem
- copse n.
- A wood of small growth; a thicket of brushwood. See Coppice. [Contr. from coppice.]
- bramble n.
- Any plant of the genus Rubus, including the raspberry and blackberry. Hence: Any rough, prickly shrub. [OE. brembil, AS.brbramal), fr. the same root as E. broom, As. br. See Broom.]
- sobbing n.
- A series of short, convulsive inspirations, the glottis being suddenly closed so that little or no air enters into the lungs.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Quarry in the Wood 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, The Quarry in the Wood, in The Defeat of Youth, and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #24364, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/huxley-defeat-of-youth/the-quarry-in-the-wood.html, id L22007.
Form and metre
The Quarry in the Wood is 15 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
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 ABBACDDCEEFGF-G placeA · sunB · runB · faceA · mistC · flameD · shameD · kissedC · breathE · deathE · voidF · deceitG · destroyedF · now · feetG
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Swiftly deliberate, he seeks the place. | 10 | /˘˘/˘····· |
| A small wind stirs, the copse is bright in the sun: | 11 | ··········· |
| Like quicksilver the shine and shadow run | 10 | ·//˘···/·· |
| Across the leaves. A bramble whips his face, | 10 | ˘/···/˘··· |
| The tears spring fast, and through the rainbow mist | 10 | ·······/·· |
| He sees a world that wavers like the flame | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Of a blown candle. Tears of pain and shame, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And lips that once had laughed and sung and kissed | 10 | ·········· |
| Trembling in the passion of his sobbing breath! | 11 | /˘··/˘··/˘· |
| The world a candle shuddering to its death, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| And life a darkness, blind and utterly void | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Of any love or goodness: all deceit, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| This friendship and this God: all shams destroyed, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| And truth seen now. | 4 | ···· |
| Earth fails beneath his feet. | 6 | ······ |
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.