The Poets
O ye dead Poets, who are living stillImmortal in your verse, though life be fled,And ye, O living Poets, who are deadThough ye are living, if neglect can kill,Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill,With drops of anguish falling fast and redFrom the sharp crown of thorns upon your head,Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil?Yes; for the gift and ministry of SongHave something in them so divinely sweet,It can assuage the bitterness of wrong;Not in the clamor of the crowded street,Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.
Words in this poem
- defeat v. t.
- To undo; to disfigure; to destroy. [From F. défait, OF. desfait, p. p. ofe défaire, OF. desfaire, to undo; L. dis- + facere to do. See Feat, Fact, and cf. Disfashion.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Poets 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, The Poets, in The Complete Poetical Works (1839–1882), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1365, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/longfellow-poems/the-poets.html, id L17758.
Form and metre
The Poets is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 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 ABBAABB-CDCDCD stillA · fledB · deadB · killA · illA · redB · headB · fulfil · songC · sweetD · wrongC · streetD · throngC · defeatD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O ye dead Poets, who are living still | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Immortal in your verse, though life be fled, | 10 | ˘/˘······· |
| And ye, O living Poets, who are dead | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Though ye are living, if neglect can kill, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Tell me if in the darkest hours of ill, | 10 | ·····/˘/·· |
| With drops of anguish falling fast and red | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| From the sharp crown of thorns upon your head, | 10 | ·········· |
| Ye were not glad your errand to fulfil? | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Yes; for the gift and ministry of Song | 9 | ·····/˘·· |
| Have something in them so divinely sweet, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| It can assuage the bitterness of wrong; | 9 | ··˘/·/˘·· |
| Not in the clamor of the crowded street, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat. | 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.