The Two Terrors
Two terrors fright my soul by night and day:The first is Life, and with her come the years;A weary, winding train of maidens they,With forward-fronting eyes, too sad for tears;Upon whose kindred faces, blank and grey,The shadow of a kindred woe appears.Death is the second terror; who shall sayWhat form beneath the shrouding mantle nears?
Which way she turn, my soul finds no relief,My smitten soul may not be comforted;Alternately she swings from grief to grief,And, poised between them, sways from dread to dread.For there she dreads because she knows; and here,Because she knows not, inly faints with fear.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- shrouding n.
- The shrouds. See Shroud, n., 7.
- inly a.
- Internal; interior; secret. [OE. inlich, AS. inlic. See In.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Two Terrors is in the public domain. This text is taken from A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #56974; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Amy Levy, The Two Terrors, in A London Plane-Tree, and Other Verse (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56974, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/levy-london-plane-tree/the-two-terrors.html, id L26149.
Form and metre
The Two Terrors is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABABABAB dayA · yearsB · theyA · tearsB · greyA · appearsB · sayA · nearsB
- 2 ABABCC reliefA · comfortedB · griefA · dreadB · hereC · fearC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Two terrors fright my soul by night and day: | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| The first is Life, and with her come the years; | 10 | ·········· |
| A weary, winding train of maidens they, | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| With forward-fronting eyes, too sad for tears; | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Upon whose kindred faces, blank and grey, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| The shadow of a kindred woe appears. | 10 | ·/···/˘·˘/ |
| Death is the second terror; who shall say | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| What form beneath the shrouding mantle nears? | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Which way she turn, my soul finds no relief, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| My smitten soul may not be comforted; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘˘ |
| Alternately she swings from grief to grief, | 10 | /˘˘˘······ |
| And, poised between them, sways from dread to dread. | 10 | ·········· |
| For there she dreads because she knows; and here, | 10 | ·········· |
| Because she knows not, inly faints with fear. | 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.