Old Age
The course of my long life hath reached at last,In fragile bark o'er a tempestuous sea,The common harbor, where must rendered beAccount of all the actions of the past.The impassioned phantasy, that, vague and vast,Made art an idol and a king to me,Was an illusion, and but vanityWere the desires that lured me and harassed.The dreams of love, that were so sweet of yore,What are they now, when two deaths may be mine,--One sure, and one forecasting its alarms?Painting and sculpture satisfy no moreThe soul now turning to the Love Divine,That oped, to embrace us, on the cross its arms.
Words in this poem
- impassioned p. p.
- Actuated or characterized by passion or zeal; showing warmth of feeling; ardent; animated; excited; as, an impassioned orator or discourse.
- idol n.
- An image or representation of anything. [OE. idole, F. idole, L. idolum, fr. Gr. Wit, and cf. Eidolon.]
- yore adv.
- In time long past; in old time; long since. [OE. , yare, , AS. geára;akin to geár a year, E. year. Year.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Old Age 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, Old Age, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/old-age.html, id L18095.
Form and metre
Old Age is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.1 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% 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 lastA · seaB · beB · pastA · vastA · meB · vanity · harassedA · yoreC · mineD · alarmsE · moreC · divineD · armsE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The course of my long life hath reached at last, | 10 | ·········· |
| In fragile bark o'er a tempestuous sea, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| The common harbor, where must rendered be | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Account of all the actions of the past. | 10 | ˘/···/˘··· |
| The impassioned phantasy, that, vague and vast, | 11 | ·˘/˘/˘˘···· |
| Made art an idol and a king to me, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Was an illusion, and but vanity | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘˘ |
| Were the desires that lured me and harassed. | 10 | ··˘/····˘/ |
| The dreams of love, that were so sweet of yore, | 10 | ·········· |
| What are they now, when two deaths may be mine,-- | 10 | ·········· |
| One sure, and one forecasting its alarms? | 10 | ····/·˘·˘/ |
| Painting and sculpture satisfy no more | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘··· |
| The soul now turning to the Love Divine, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| That oped, to embrace us, on the cross its arms. | 11 | ···˘/······ |
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.