The Rest
O helpless few in my country,O remnant enslaved!
Artists broken against her,A-stray, lost in the villages,Mistrusted, spoken-against,
Lovers of beauty, starved,Thwarted with systems,Helpless against the control;
You who can not wear yourselves outBy persisting to successes,You who can only speak,Who can not steel yourselves into reiteration;
You of the finer sense,Broken against false knowledge,You who can know at first hand,Hated, shut in, mistrusted:
Take thought:I have weathered the storm,I have beaten out my exile.
Words in this poem
- persisting a.
- Inclined to persist; tenacious of purpose; persistent.
- reiteration n.
- The act of reiterating; that which is reiterated. [Cf. F. réitération.]
- weathered a.
- Made sloping, so as to throw off water; as, a weathered cornice or window sill.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Rest is in the public domain. This text is taken from Lustra of Ezra Pound, Project Gutenberg ebook #55564; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ezra Pound, The Rest, in Lustra (1916), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #55564, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/pound-lustra/the-rest.html, id L01261.
Form and metre
The Rest is 19 lines in 6 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 83% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 6.9 syllables. 7 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 5% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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.
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| O helpless few in my country, | 8 | ·/˘···/˘ |
| O remnant enslaved! | 5 | ·/˘˘/ |
| Artists broken against her, | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| A-stray, lost in the villages, | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Mistrusted, spoken-against, | 7 | ˘/˘/˘·· |
| Lovers of beauty, starved, | 6 | /˘·/˘· |
| Thwarted with systems, | 5 | /˘·/˘ |
| Helpless against the control; | 7 | /˘···˘/ |
| You who can not wear yourselves out | 8 | ·····˘/· |
| By persisting to successes, | 8 | ·˘/˘·˘/˘ |
| You who can only speak, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Who can not steel yourselves into reiteration; | 13 | ····˘/··˘·˘/˘ |
| You of the finer sense, | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Broken against false knowledge, | 7 | /˘···/˘ |
| You who can know at first hand, | 7 | ······· |
| Hated, shut in, mistrusted: | 7 | /˘··˘/˘ |
| Take thought: | 2 | ·· |
| I have weathered the storm, | 6 | ··/˘·· |
| I have beaten out my exile. | 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.