The Past
Wilt thou forget the happy hoursWhich we buried in Love's sweet bowers,Heaping over their corpses coldBlossoms and leaves, instead of mould?Blossoms which were the joys that fell,And leaves, the hopes that yet remain.
Forget the dead, the past? Oh, yetThere are ghosts that may take revenge for it,Memories that make the heart a tomb,Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom,And with ghastly whispers tellThat joy, once lost, is pain.
Words in this poem
- mould n.
- Crumbling, soft, friable earth; esp., earth containing the remains or constituents of organic matter, and suited to the growth of plants; soil. [OE. molde, AS. molde; akin to D. mul, G. mull, mulm, OHG. molt, molta, Icel. mold, Dan. muld, Sw. mull, Goth. mulda, and E. meal flour. See Meal, and cf. Mole a]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Past 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, The Past, 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/the-past.html, id L16334.
Form and metre
The Past is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: octosyllabic couplets. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 81% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in octosyllabic couplets, other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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-- hoursA · bowersA · coldB · mouldB · fell · remain
- 2 --AA-- yet · it · tombA · gloomA · tell · pain
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Wilt thou forget the happy hours | 9 | ··˘/·/˘/˘ |
| Which we buried in Love's sweet bowers, | 9 | ··/˘···/˘ |
| Heaping over their corpses cold | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| Blossoms and leaves, instead of mould? | 8 | /˘··˘/·· |
| Blossoms which were the joys that fell, | 8 | /˘······ |
| And leaves, the hopes that yet remain. | 8 | ······˘/ |
| Forget the dead, the past? Oh, yet | 8 | ˘/······ |
| There are ghosts that may take revenge for it, | 10 | ······˘/·· |
| Memories that make the heart a tomb, | 8 | /˘······ |
| Regrets which glide through the spirit's gloom, | 9 | ˘/····/˘· |
| And with ghastly whispers tell | 7 | ··/˘/˘· |
| That joy, once lost, is pain. | 6 | ······ |
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.