An Adaptation
Life cried to Youth, “I bear the cryptic key:I grant you two desires, but only two.What gifts have I to crown and comfort you?”Youth answered, “I am blind and I would see;Open my eyes and let me look on thee.”‘Twas done: he saw the face of Life, and thenCried brokenly, “Now make me blind again!”
Words in this poem
- cryptic a.
- Hidden; secret; occult.
- brokenly adv.
- In a broken, interrupted manner; in a broken state; in broken language.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
An Adaptation is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lincoln & other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #54527; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Markham, An Adaptation, in Lincoln and Other Poems (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #54527, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-lincoln/an-adaptation.html, id L10828.
Form and metre
An Adaptation is 7 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 86% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 ABBAACC keyA · twoB · youB · seeA · theeA · thenC · againC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Life cried to Youth, “I bear the cryptic key: | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| I grant you two desires, but only two. | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| What gifts have I to crown and comfort you?” | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Youth answered, “I am blind and I would see; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Open my eyes and let me look on thee.” | 10 | /˘········ |
| ‘Twas done: he saw the face of Life, and then | 10 | ·········· |
| Cried brokenly, “Now make me blind again!” | 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.