Despondent
A gale goes ruffling down the stream,The giants of the forest crack;My thoughts are bitter -- black as death --For she, my summer, comes not back.
A hundred years like water glide,Riches and rank are ashen cold,Daily the dream of peace recedes:By whom shall Sorrow be consoled?
The soldier, dauntless, draws his sword,And there are tears and endless pain;The winds arise, leaves flutter down,And through the old thatch drips the rain.
Words in this poem
- ashen a.
- Of or pertaining to the ash tree. [See Ash, the tree.]
- 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,]
- dauntless a.
- Incapable of being daunted; undaunted; bold; fearless; intrepid.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Despondent is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Lute of Jade, Project Gutenberg ebook #390, the L. Cranmer-Byng 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: Various, Despondent, in A Lute of Jade (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lute-of-jade/despondent.html, id L15618.
Form and metre
Despondent is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
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 stream · crackA · death · backA
- 2 -A-A glide · coldA · recedes · consoledA
- 3 -A-A sword · painA · down · rainA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| A gale goes ruffling down the stream, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The giants of the forest crack; | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| My thoughts are bitter -- black as death -- | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| For she, my summer, comes not back. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| A hundred years like water glide, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Riches and rank are ashen cold, | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| Daily the dream of peace recedes: | 8 | /˘····˘/ |
| By whom shall Sorrow be consoled? | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| The soldier, dauntless, draws his sword, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And there are tears and endless pain; | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The winds arise, leaves flutter down, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| And through the old thatch drips the rain. | 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.