Waste
No rose but fades: no glory but must pass:No hue but dims: no precious silk but frets.Her beauty must go underneath the grass,Under the long roots of the violets.
O, many glowing beauties Time has hidIn that dark, blotting box the villain sends.He covers over with a coffin-lidMothers and sons, and foes and lovely friends.
Maids that were redly-lipped and comely-skinned,Friends that deserved a sweeter bed than clay,All are as blossoms blowing down the wind,Things the old envious villain sweeps away.
And though the mutterer laughs and church bells toll,Death brings another April to the soul.
Words in this poem
- envious a.
- Malignant; mischievous; spiteful. [OF. envios, F. envieux, fr. L. invidiosus, fr. invidia envy. See Envy, and cf. Invidious.]
- mutterer n.
- One who mutters.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Waste 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, Waste, 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/waste.html, id L25025.
Form and metre
Waste is 14 lines in 4 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 ABAB passA · fretsB · grassA · violetsB
- 2 ABAB hidA · sendsB · lidA · friendsB
- 3 ABAB skinnedA · clayB · windA · awayB
- 4 AA tollA · soulA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| No rose but fades: no glory but must pass: | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| No hue but dims: no precious silk but frets. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Her beauty must go underneath the grass, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| Under the long roots of the violets. | 10 | ·······/˘˘ |
| O, many glowing beauties Time has hid | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| In that dark, blotting box the villain sends. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| He covers over with a coffin-lid | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Mothers and sons, and foes and lovely friends. | 10 | /˘·····/˘· |
| Maids that were redly-lipped and comely-skinned, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Friends that deserved a sweeter bed than clay, | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| All are as blossoms blowing down the wind, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Things the old envious villain sweeps away. | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And though the mutterer laughs and church bells toll, | 11 | ···/˘˘····· |
| Death brings another April to the soul. | 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.