The Everlasting Mercy, and the Widow in Bye Street
"--recreates a wholly new drama of existence."--WILLIAM STANLEYBRAITHWAITE, N. Y. Times."They are truly great pieces."--Kentucky Post.
"A vigor and sincerity rare in modern English literature."--TheIndependent.
About this text
The Everlasting Mercy, and the Widow in Bye Street is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Story of a Round-House, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #40717; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Masefield, The Everlasting Mercy, and the Widow in Bye Street, in The Story of a Round-House, and Other Poems (1912), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #40717, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masefield-round-house/the-everlasting-mercy-and-the-widow-in-bye-street.html, id L25030.
Form and metre
The Everlasting Mercy, and the Widow in Bye Street is 5 lines in 2 stanzas. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| "--recreates a wholly new drama of existence."--WILLIAM STANLEY | 17 | ˘˘/·/˘·/˘·˘/˘/˘/˘ |
| BRAITHWAITE, N. Y. Times. | 5 | /···· |
| "They are truly great pieces."--Kentucky Post. | 11 | ··/˘·/˘˘/˘· |
| "A vigor and sincerity rare in modern English literature."--The | 16 | ·/˘·˘/˘··/˘/˘/˘· |
| Independent. | 4 | ·˘/˘ |
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.