The Old Earth
How will it be if there we find no traces--There in the Golden Heaven--if we findNo memories of the old Earth left behind,No visions of familiar forms and faces--Reminders of old voices and old places?Yet could we bear it if it should remind?
Words in this poem
- remind v. t.
- To put (one) in mind of something; to bring to the remembrance of; to bring to the notice or consideration of (a person).
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Old Earth is in the public domain. This text is taken from The man with the hoe, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #67012; 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 Old Earth, in The Man with the Hoe, and Other Poems (1899), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #67012, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/markham-man-with-hoe/the-old-earth.html, id L24793.
Form and metre
The Old Earth is 6 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
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 ABBAAB tracesA · findB · behindB · facesA · placesA · remindB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| How will it be if there we find no traces-- | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| There in the Golden Heaven--if we find | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| No memories of the old Earth left behind, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| No visions of familiar forms and faces-- | 11 | ·/˘·˘/˘··/˘ |
| Reminders of old voices and old places? | 11 | ˘/˘··/˘··/˘ |
| Yet could we bear it if it should remind? | 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.