The Suicide
Toil-worn, and trusting Zeno’s mad belief,A soul went wailing from the world of grief:A wild hope led the way,Then suddenly—dismay!Lo, the old load was There—The duty, the despair!Nothing had changed: still only one escapeFrom its old self into the angel shape.
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Suicide 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, The Suicide, in Lincoln and Other Poems (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #54527, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-lincoln/the-suicide.html, id L10798.
Form and metre
The Suicide is 8 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AABBCCDD beliefA · griefA · wayB · dismayB · thereC · despairC · escapeD · shapeD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Toil-worn, and trusting Zeno’s mad belief, | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| A soul went wailing from the world of grief: | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| A wild hope led the way, | 6 | ······ |
| Then suddenly—dismay! | 6 | ·/˘˘˘/ |
| Lo, the old load was There— | 6 | ······ |
| The duty, the despair! | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| Nothing had changed: still only one escape | 10 | /˘···/˘·˘/ |
| From its old self into the angel shape. | 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.