Drifting
We cannot keep the gold of yesterday;To-day's dun clouds we cannot roll away.Now the long, wailing flight of geese brings autumn in its train,So to the view-tower cup in hand to fill and drink again,
And dream of the greatest singers of the past,Their fadeless lines of fire and beauty cast.I too have felt the wild-bird thrill of song behind the bars,But these have brushed the world aside and walked amid the stars.
In vain we cleave the torrent's thread with steel,In vain we drink to drown the grief we feel;When man's desire with fate doth war this, this avails alone --To hoist the sail and let the gale and the waters bear us on.
Words in this poem
- fadeless a.
- Not liable to fade; unfading.
- amid prep.
- In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. [OE. amidde, amiddes, on midden, AS. on middan, in the middle, fr. midde the middle. The s is an adverbial ending, originally marking the genitive; the t is a la]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Drifting 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, Drifting, in A Lute of Jade (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #390, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/lute-of-jade/drifting.html, id L15583.
Form and metre
Drifting is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 12.2 syllables.
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 AABB yesterdayA · awayA · trainB · againB
- 2 AABB pastA · castA · barsB · starsB
- 3 AA-- steelA · feelA · alone · on
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 |
|---|---|---|
| We cannot keep the gold of yesterday; | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| To-day's dun clouds we cannot roll away. | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Now the long, wailing flight of geese brings autumn in its train, | 14 | ···/˘····/˘··· |
| So to the view-tower cup in hand to fill and drink again, | 14 | ····/·······˘/ |
| And dream of the greatest singers of the past, | 11 | ····/˘/˘··· |
| Their fadeless lines of fire and beauty cast. | 10 | ·/˘··/·/˘· |
| I too have felt the wild-bird thrill of song behind the bars, | 14 | ·············· |
| But these have brushed the world aside and walked amid the stars. | 14 | ······˘/··˘/·· |
| In vain we cleave the torrent's thread with steel, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| In vain we drink to drown the grief we feel; | 10 | ·········· |
| When man's desire with fate doth war this, this avails alone -- | 14 | ··˘/······˘/˘/ |
| To hoist the sail and let the gale and the waters bear us on. | 15 | ··········/˘··· |
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.