Does It Matter?
Does it matter?--losing your legs?...For people will always be kind,And you need not show that you mindWhen the others come in after footballTo 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 The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon, Project Gutenberg ebook #45199; 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 The War Poems (1919), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #45199, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/sassoon-war-poems/does-it-matter.html, id L17256.
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. 2 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 ABB-A legsA · kindB · mindB · football · eggsA
- 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 legs?... | 8 | ··/˘/˘·· |
| For people will always be kind, | 8 | ·/˘·/··· |
| And you need not show that you mind | 8 | ········ |
| When the others come in after football | 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.