The Sunken Crown
Nothing will hold him longer--let him go;Let him go down where others have gone down;Little he cares whether we smile or frown,Or if we know, or if we think we know.The call is on him for his overthrow,Say we; so let him rise, or let him drown.Poor fool! He plunges for the sunken crown,And we--we wait for what the plunge may show.Well, we are safe enough. Why linger, then?The watery chance was his, not ours. Poor fool!Poor truant, poor Narcissus out of school;Poor jest of Askelon; poor king of men.--The crown, if he be wearing it, may coolHis arrogance, and he may sleep again.
Words in this poem
- narcissus n.
- A genus of endogenous bulbous plants with handsome flowers, having a cup-shaped crown within the six-lobed perianth, and comprising the daffodils and jonquils of several kinds. [L. narcissus, and (personified) Narcissus, Gr. na`rkissos, Na`rkissos, fr. na`rkh torpor, in allusion to the narcotic properties of the flower. Cf. Narcotic.]
- jest n.
- A deed; an action; a gest. [OE. jeste, geste, deed, action, story, tale, OF. geste, LL. gesta, orig., exploits, neut. pl. from L. gestus, p. p. of gerere to bear, carry, accomplish, perfor]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Sunken Crown is in the public domain. This text is taken from The town down the river, Project Gutenberg ebook #76699; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Sunken Crown, in The Town Down the River (1910), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #76699, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/robinson-town-down-river/the-sunken-crown.html, id L17205.
Form and metre
The Sunken Crown is 14 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 57% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.9 syllables. 7% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 ABBAABBACDDCDC goA · downB · frownB · knowA · overthrowA · drownB · crownB · showA · thenC · foolD · schoolD · menC · coolD · againC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing will hold him longer--let him go; | 10 | /˘···/˘··· |
| Let him go down where others have gone down; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Little he cares whether we smile or frown, | 10 | /˘········ |
| Or if we know, or if we think we know. | 10 | ·········· |
| The call is on him for his overthrow, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Say we; so let him rise, or let him drown. | 10 | ·········· |
| Poor fool! He plunges for the sunken crown, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And we--we wait for what the plunge may show. | 10 | ·········· |
| Well, we are safe enough. Why linger, then? | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| The watery chance was his, not ours. Poor fool! | 10 | ·/˘····/·· |
| Poor truant, poor Narcissus out of school; | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘··· |
| Poor jest of Askelon; poor king of men.-- | 10 | ·········· |
| The crown, if he be wearing it, may cool | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| His arrogance, and he may sleep again. | 9 | ·/˘····˘/ |
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.