Part I: Section 2
Outcast so long—no Heaven, no home—He wandered through earth's wildernesses—Monotonous and wearisome,As one age on another presses,Or one slow minute follows minute.The paltry world was his—but in itHis wickedness he wrought resistless,For men on earth nowhere withstoodHis wiles when he essayed—and, listless,He loathed the evil seeds he strewed.
Words in this poem
- outcast a.
- Cast out; degraded. [Cf. Sw. utkasta to cast out.]
- resistless a.
- Having no power to resist; making no opposition.
- nowhere adv.
- Not anywhere; not in any place or state; as, the book is nowhere to be found. [AS. nahwær. See No, and Where.]
- listless a.
- Having no desire or inclination; indifferent; heedless; spiritless. [OE. listles, lustles. See Lust.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Part I: Section 2 is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Demon, translated from the Russian of Lermontoff by Robert Burness, B.A. (Oxon.), Edinburgh: Douglas & Foulis, 1918, Internet Archive, the Robert Burness translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Mikhail Lermontov, Part I: Section 2, in The Demon (1918), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lermontov-demon/1-2.html, id L28455.
Form and metre
Part I: Section 2 is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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-A-BBC-C- homeA · wildernesses · wearisomeA · presses · minuteB · itB · resistlessC · withstood · listlessC · strewed
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Outcast so long—no Heaven, no home— | 8 | /····/·· |
| He wandered through earth's wildernesses— | 9 | ·/˘··/˘˘˘ |
| Monotonous and wearisome, | 8 | ˘/˘˘·/˘˘ |
| As one age on another presses, | 9 | ····˘/˘/˘ |
| Or one slow minute follows minute. | 9 | ···/˘/˘/˘ |
| The paltry world was his—but in it | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| His wickedness he wrought resistless, | 9 | ·/˘˘··˘/˘ |
| For men on earth nowhere withstood | 8 | ····/·˘/ |
| His wiles when he essayed—and, listless, | 9 | ····˘/·/˘ |
| He loathed the evil seeds he strewed. | 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.