Omar
Old Omar, jolly sceptic, it may beThat, after all, you found the magic keyTo life and all its mystery, and IMust own you have almost persuaded me.
Words in this poem
- sceptic
- etc. See Skeptic, Skeptical, Skepticism, etc.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Omar is in the public domain. This text is taken from Fifty Years, & Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #17884; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: James Weldon Johnson, Omar, in Fifty Years and Other Poems (1917), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #17884, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/johnson-fifty-years/omar.html, id L08319.
Form and metre
Omar is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.8 syllables.
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 AAAA beA · keyA · iA · meA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Old Omar, jolly sceptic, it may be | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| That, after all, you found the magic key | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| To life and all its mystery, and I | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| Must own you have almost persuaded me. | 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.