Fragment: 'Alas! This Is Not What I Thought Life Was'
Alas! this is not what I thought life was.I knew that there were crimes and evil men,Misery and hate; nor did I hope to passUntouched by suffering, through the rugged glen.In mine own heart I saw as in a glassThe hearts of others ... And whenI went among my kind, with triple brassOf calm endurance my weak breast I armed,To bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woful mass!
Words in this poem
- went n.
- Course; way; path; journey; direction.
- woful a.
- Full of woe; sorrowful; distressed with grief or calamity; afflicted; wretched; unhappy; sad.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Fragment: 'Alas! This Is Not What I Thought Life Was' is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Volume 2, Project Gutenberg ebook #4798; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Fragment: 'Alas! This Is Not What I Thought Life Was', in The Complete Poetical Works, Volume II (1816–1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4798, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shelley-later-poems/fragment-alas-this-is-not-what-i-thought-life-was.html, id L16430.
Form and metre
Fragment: 'Alas! This Is Not What I Thought Life Was' is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.7 syllables. 44% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -ABABAB-B was · menA · passB · glenA · glassB · whenA · brassB · armed · massB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Alas! this is not what I thought life was. | 10 | ˘/········ |
| I knew that there were crimes and evil men, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Misery and hate; nor did I hope to pass | 10 | /˘········ |
| Untouched by suffering, through the rugged glen. | 10 | ˘/·/˘··/˘· |
| In mine own heart I saw as in a glass | 10 | ·········· |
| The hearts of others ... And when | 7 | ···/˘·· |
| I went among my kind, with triple brass | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Of calm endurance my weak breast I armed, | 10 | ··/˘˘····· |
| To bear scorn, fear, and hate, a woful mass! | 10 | ·········· |
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.