Does It Matter?
Does it matter?--losing your leg? ...For people will always be kind,And you need not show that you mindWhen the others come in after huntingTo gobble their muffins and eggs.
Does it matter?--losing your sight? ...There's such splendid work for the blind;And people will always be kind,As you sit on the terrace rememberingAnd turning your face to the light.
Do they matter?--those dreams from the pit? ...You can drink and forget and be glad,And people won't say that you're mad;For they'll know that you've fought for your country,And no one will worry a bit.
Words in this poem
- gobble v. t.
- To swallow or eat greedily or hastily; to gulp. [Freq. of 2d gob.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Does It Matter? is in the public domain. This text is taken from Counter-Attack and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #8930; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Siegfried Sassoon, Does It Matter?, in Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8930, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sassoon-counter-attack/does-it-matter.html, id L04701.
Form and metre
Does It Matter? is 15 lines in 3 stanzas of 5 lines each. The metre is anapaestic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%). 89% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.6 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 20% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in anapaestic trimeter.
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 -AA-- leg · kindA · mindA · hunting · eggs
- 2 ABB-A sightA · blindB · kindB · remembering · lightA
- 3 ABB-A pitA · gladB · madB · country · bitA
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 anapaestic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Does it matter?--losing your leg? ... | 8 | ··/˘/˘·· |
| For people will always be kind, | 8 | ·/˘·/··· |
| And you need not show that you mind | 8 | ········ |
| When the others come in after hunting | 10 | ··/˘····/˘ |
| To gobble their muffins and eggs. | 8 | ·/˘·/˘·· |
| Does it matter?--losing your sight? ... | 8 | ··/˘/˘·· |
| There's such splendid work for the blind; | 8 | ··/˘···· |
| And people will always be kind, | 8 | ·/˘·/··· |
| As you sit on the terrace remembering | 11 | ·····/˘˘/˘˘ |
| And turning your face to the light. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Do they matter?--those dreams from the pit? ... | 9 | ··/˘····· |
| You can drink and forget and be glad, | 9 | ····˘/··· |
| And people won't say that you're mad; | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| For they'll know that you've fought for your country, | 10 | ········/˘ |
| And no one will worry a bit. | 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.