Fragment: 'What men gain fairly'
What men gain fairly--that they should possess,And children may inherit idleness,From him who earns it--This is understood;Private injustice may be general good.But he who gains by base and armed wrong,Or guilty fraud, or base compliances,May be despoiled; even as a stolen dressIs stripped from a convicted thief; and heLeft in the nakedness of infamy.
Words in this poem
- nakedness n.
- The condition of being naked.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Fragment: 'What men gain fairly' 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: 'What men gain fairly', in Ode to the West Wind, and Other Poems (1816–1819), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4798, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/shelley-later-poems/fragment-what-men-gain-fairly.html, id L25646.
Form and metre
Fragment: 'What men gain fairly' is 9 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
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 AABB--A-- possessA · idlenessA · understoodB · goodB · wrong · compliances · dressA · he · infamy
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 |
|---|---|---|
| What men gain fairly--that they should possess, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| And children may inherit idleness, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘/˘˘ |
| From him who earns it--This is understood; | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Private injustice may be general good. | 10 | /˘˘/˘··/˘· |
| But he who gains by base and armed wrong, | 10 | ········˘· |
| Or guilty fraud, or base compliances, | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘˘ |
| May be despoiled; even as a stolen dress | 10 | ····/··/˘· |
| Is stripped from a convicted thief; and he | 10 | ····˘/˘··· |
| Left in the nakedness of infamy. | 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.