Futility
Move him into the sun--Gently its touch awoke him once,At home, whispering of fields unsown.Always it woke him, even in France,Until this morning and this snow.If anything might rouse him nowThe kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds--Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sidesFull-nerved,--still warm,--too hard to stir?Was it for this the clay grew tall?--O what made fatuous sunbeams toilTo break earth's sleep at all?
Words in this poem
- fatuous a.
- Feeble in mind; weak; silly; stupid; foolish; fatuitous. Glanvill. [L. fatuus.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Futility is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #1034; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Wilfred Owen, Futility, in Poems (1920), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1034, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/owen-poems/futility.html, id L04679.
Form and metre
Futility is 14 lines in 2 stanzas of 7 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 88% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 21% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 sun · once · unsown · france · snowA · now · knowA
- 2 ----A-A seeds · star · sides · stir · tallA · toil · allA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Move him into the sun-- | 6 | ······ |
| Gently its touch awoke him once, | 8 | /˘··˘/·· |
| At home, whispering of fields unsown. | 9 | ··/˘˘···· |
| Always it woke him, even in France, | 9 | /····/˘·· |
| Until this morning and this snow. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| If anything might rouse him now | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The kind old sun will know. | 6 | ······ |
| Think how it wakes the seeds-- | 6 | ······ |
| Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. | 8 | ········ |
| Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides | 9 | ····˘/˘·· |
| Full-nerved,--still warm,--too hard to stir? | 9 | ··˘······ |
| Was it for this the clay grew tall? | 8 | ········ |
| --O what made fatuous sunbeams toil | 9 | ···/˘˘/·· |
| To break earth's sleep at all? | 6 | ······ |
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.