The Other Man
Cry 'Murder' in the market-place, and eachWill turn upon his neighbour anxious eyesAsking;--'Art thou the man?' We hunted CainSome centuries ago across the world.This bred the fear our own misdeeds maintainTo-day.
Words in this poem
- neighbour v. i.
- To dwell in the vicinity; to be a neighbor, or in the neighborhood; to be near.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Other Man is in the public domain. This text is taken from Songs from Books, Project Gutenberg ebook #15529; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rudyard Kipling, The Other Man, in Songs from Books (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #15529, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/kipling-songs-from-books/the-other-man.html, id L20292.
Form and metre
The Other Man is 6 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 --A-A- each · eyes · cainA · world · maintainA · day
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Cry 'Murder' in the market-place, and each | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Will turn upon his neighbour anxious eyes | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Asking;--'Art thou the man?' We hunted Cain | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Some centuries ago across the world. | 9 | ·/˘˘/˘/·· |
| This bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain | 10 | ····/·˘/˘/ |
| To-day. | 2 | ·· |
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.