To My Enemy
Let those who will of friendship sing,And to its guerdon grateful be,But I a lyric garland bringTo crown thee, O, mine enemy!
Thanks, endless thanks, to thee I oweFor that my lifelong journey throughThine honest hate has done for meWhat love perchance had failed to do.
I had not scaled such weary heightsBut that I held thy scorn in fear,And never keenest lure might matchThe subtle goading of thy sneer.
Thine anger struck from me a fireThat purged all dull content away,Our mortal strife to me has beenUnflagging spur from day to day.
And thus, while all the world may laudThe gifts of love and loyalty,I lay my meed of gratitudeBefore thy feet, mine enemy!
Words in this poem
- guerdon n.
- A reward; requital; recompense; -- used in both a good and a bad sense. [OF. guerdon, guerredon, LL. widerdonum (influenced by L. donum gift, cf. Donation ), fr. OHG. widarl; widar again, against (G. wider wieder) + lon reward, G. lo]
- lifelong a.
- Lasting or continuing through life. [Life + long. Cf. Livelong.]
- scaled a.
- Covered with scales, or scalelike structures; -- said of a fish, a reptile, a moth, etc.
- strife n.
- The act of striving; earnest endeavor. [OF. estrif. See Strive.]
- meed v. t.
- To reward; to repay. Waytt.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To My Enemy is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Watchman and Other Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1917; Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart, 1916), Internet Archive; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: L. M. Montgomery, To My Enemy, in The Watchman and Other Poems (1916), text of Internet Archive, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/montgomery-watchman/to-my-enemy.html, id L29410.
Form and metre
To My Enemy is 20 lines in 5 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 A-A- singA · be · bringA · enemy
- 2 -A-A owe · throughA · me · doA
- 3 -A-A heights · fearA · match · sneerA
- 4 -A-A fire · awayA · been · dayA
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Let those who will of friendship sing, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And to its guerdon grateful be, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| But I a lyric garland bring | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| To crown thee, O, mine enemy! | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Thanks, endless thanks, to thee I owe | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| For that my lifelong journey through | 8 | ···///˘· |
| Thine honest hate has done for me | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| What love perchance had failed to do. | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| I had not scaled such weary heights | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| But that I held thy scorn in fear, | 8 | ········ |
| And never keenest lure might match | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| The subtle goading of thy sneer. | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Thine anger struck from me a fire | 9 | ·/˘····/˘ |
| That purged all dull content away, | 8 | ····˘/˘/ |
| Our mortal strife to me has been | 8 | //˘····· |
| Unflagging spur from day to day. | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| And thus, while all the world may laud | 8 | ········ |
| The gifts of love and loyalty, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| I lay my meed of gratitude | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| Before thy feet, mine enemy! | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
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.