Poems
O the sad day!When friends shall shake their heads, and sayOf miserable me--‘Hark, how he groans!Look, how he pants for breath!See how he struggles with the pangs of death!’When they shall say of these dear eyes--‘How hollow, O how dim they be!Mark how his breast doth rise and swellAgainst his potent enemy!’When some old friend shall step to my bedside,Touch my chill face, and thence shall gently slide.But--when his next companions say‘How does he do? What hopes?’--shall turn away,Answering only, with a lift-up hand--‘Who can his fate withstand?’
Then shall a gasp or two do moreThan e’er my rhetoric could before:Persuade the world to trouble me no more!
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- bedside n.
- The side of a bed.
- gasp v. i.
- To open the mouth wide in catching the breath, or in laborious respiration; to labor for breath; to respire convulsively; to pant violently. [OE. gaspen, gaispen, to yawn, gasp, Icel. geispa to yawn; akin to Sw. gäspa, Dan. gispe to gasp.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Poems is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900, Project Gutenberg ebook #66619; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Flatman, Poems, (1637–1688), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #66619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/obev-thomas-flatman/the-sad-day.html, id L16126.
Form and metre
The Sad Day is 19 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is in rhyming couplets, 63% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter. 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, 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 AAB-CC-B--DDAAEE dayA · sayA · meB · groans · breathC · deathC · eyes · beB · swell · enemy · bedsideD · slideD · sayA · awayA · handE · withstandE
- 2 AAA moreA · beforeA · moreA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O the sad day! | 4 | ···· |
| When friends shall shake their heads, and say | 8 | ········ |
| Of miserable me-- | 6 | ·/˘˘˘· |
| ‘Hark, how he groans! | 4 | ···· |
| Look, how he pants for breath! | 6 | ······ |
| See how he struggles with the pangs of death!’ | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| When they shall say of these dear eyes-- | 8 | ········ |
| ‘How hollow, O how dim they be! | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Mark how his breast doth rise and swell | 8 | ········ |
| Against his potent enemy!’ | 8 | ···/˘/˘˘ |
| When some old friend shall step to my bedside, | 10 | ········/· |
| Touch my chill face, and thence shall gently slide. | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| But--when his next companions say | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| ‘How does he do? What hopes?’--shall turn away, | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Answering only, with a lift-up hand-- | 10 | /˘˘/˘····· |
| ‘Who can his fate withstand?’ | 6 | ····˘/ |
| Then shall a gasp or two do more | 8 | ········ |
| Than e’er my rhetoric could before: | 9 | ···/˘˘··· |
| Persuade the world to trouble me no more! | 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.