Herbert Marshall
All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of meSprang from your delusion that it was wantonnessOf spirit and contempt of your soul’s rightsWhich made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you.You really grew to hate me for love of me,Because I was your soul’s happiness,Formed and temperedTo solve your life for you, and would not.But you were my misery.If you had beenMy happiness would I not have clung to you?This is life’s sorrow:That one can be happy only where two are;And that our hearts are drawn to starsWhich want us not.
Words in this poem
- clung a.
- Wasted away; shrunken. [Prop. p. p. fr. OE. clingen to wither. See Cling, v. i.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Herbert Marshall is in the public domain. This text is taken from Spoon River Anthology, Project Gutenberg ebook #1280; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edgar Lee Masters, Herbert Marshall, in Spoon River Anthology (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1280, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/masters-spoon-river/herbert-marshall.html, id L07798.
Form and metre
Herbert Marshall is 15 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 71%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.6 syllables. 5 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 40% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 AB-CAB-D--C---D meA · wantonnessB · rights · youC · meA · happinessB · tempered · notD · misery · been · youC · sorrow · are · stars · notD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me | 11 | ··/˘˘/·/˘·· |
| Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness | 12 | ···˘/˘···/˘˘ |
| Of spirit and contempt of your soul’s rights | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you. | 12 | ·····/˘˘·˘/· |
| You really grew to hate me for love of me, | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| Because I was your soul’s happiness, | 9 | ······/˘˘ |
| Formed and tempered | 4 | ··/˘ |
| To solve your life for you, and would not. | 9 | ········· |
| But you were my misery. | 7 | ····/˘˘ |
| If you had been | 4 | ···· |
| My happiness would I not have clung to you? | 11 | ·/˘˘······· |
| This is life’s sorrow: | 5 | ···/˘ |
| That one can be happy only where two are; | 11 | ····/˘/˘··· |
| And that our hearts are drawn to stars | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| Which want us not. | 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.