On the Death of a Metaphysician
Unhappy dreamer, who outwinged in flightThe pleasant region of the things I love,And soared beyond the sunshine, and aboveThe golden cornfields and the dear and brightWarmth of the hearth,--blasphemer of delight,Was your proud bosom not at peace with Jove,That you sought, thankless for his guarded grove,The empty horror of abysmal night?Ah, the thin air is cold above the moon!I stood and saw you fall, befooled in death,As, in your numbed spirit's fatal swoon,You cried you were a god, or were to be;I heard with feeble moan your boastful breathBubble from depths of the Icarian sea.
Words in this poem
- dreamer n.
- One who dreams.
- sunshine n.
- The light of the sun, or the place where it shines; the direct rays of the sun, the place where they fall, or the warmth and light which they give.
- blasphemer n.
- One who blasphemes.
- jove n.
- The chief divinity of the ancient Romans; Jupiter. [L. Jupiter, gen. Jovis, OL. Jovis, nom. & gen. for Djovis; akin to E. Tuesday. See Tuesday, and cf. Jupiter.]
- thankless a.
- Not acknowledging favors; not expressing thankfulness; unthankful; ungrateful.
- abysmal a.
- Pertaining to, or resembling, an abyss; bottomless; unending; profound.
- icarian a.
- Soaring too high for safety, like Icarus; adventurous in flight.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
On the Death of a Metaphysician is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #49721; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: George Santayana, On the Death of a Metaphysician, in Poems (1922), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49721, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/santayana-poems/on-the-death-of-a-metaphysician.html, id L21728.
Form and metre
On the Death of a Metaphysician is 14 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABBAACCADEDFEF. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See 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 ABBAACCADEDFEF flightA · loveB · aboveB · brightA · delightA · joveC · groveC · nightA · moonD · deathE · swoonD · beF · breathE · seaF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Unhappy dreamer, who outwinged in flight | 10 | ˘/˘/˘····· |
| The pleasant region of the things I love, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| And soared beyond the sunshine, and above | 10 | ·····/···· |
| The golden cornfields and the dear and bright | 10 | ·/˘//····· |
| Warmth of the hearth,--blasphemer of delight, | 10 | ····˘/˘·˘/ |
| Was your proud bosom not at peace with Jove, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| That you sought, thankless for his guarded grove, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The empty horror of abysmal night? | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| Ah, the thin air is cold above the moon! | 10 | ·········· |
| I stood and saw you fall, befooled in death, | 10 | ·········· |
| As, in your numbed spirit's fatal swoon, | 10 | ····˘/˘/˘· |
| You cried you were a god, or were to be; | 10 | ·········· |
| I heard with feeble moan your boastful breath | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Bubble from depths of the Icarian sea. | 11 | /˘····˘/˘˘· |
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.