A Shadow
I said unto myself, if I were dead,What would befall these children? What would beTheir fate, who now are looking up to meFor help and furtherance? Their lives, I said,Would be a volume wherein I have readBut the first chapters, and no longer seeTo read the rest of their dear history,So full of beauty and so full of dread.Be comforted; the world is very old,And generations pass, as they have passed,A troop of shadows moving with the sun;Thousands of times has the old tale been told;The world belongs to those who come the last,They will find hope and strength as we have done.
Words in this poem
- furtherance n.
- The act of furthering or helping forward; promotion; advancement; progress.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Shadow is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Project Gutenberg ebook #1365; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, A Shadow, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/a-shadow.html, id L17748.
Form and metre
A Shadow is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 29% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABBAAB-ACDECDE deadA · beB · meB · saidA · readA · seeB · history · dreadA · oldC · passedD · sunE · toldC · lastD · doneE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| I said unto myself, if I were dead, | 10 | ·····/···· |
| What would befall these children? What would be | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| Their fate, who now are looking up to me | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| For help and furtherance? Their lives, I said, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| Would be a volume wherein I have read | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| But the first chapters, and no longer see | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| To read the rest of their dear history, | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| So full of beauty and so full of dread. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Be comforted; the world is very old, | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| And generations pass, as they have passed, | 10 | ··˘/˘····· |
| A troop of shadows moving with the sun; | 10 | ···/·/˘··· |
| Thousands of times has the old tale been told; | 10 | /˘········ |
| The world belongs to those who come the last, | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| They will find hope and strength as we have done. | 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.