Epilogue
Than farthest stars more distant,A mile more,A mile more,A voice cries on insistent:"You may smile more if you will;
"You may sing too and spring too;But numb at lastAnd dumb at last,Whatever port you cling to,You must come at last to a hill.
"And never a man you'll find thereTo take your handAnd shake your hand;But when you go behind thereYou must make your hand a sword
"To fence with a foeman swarthy,And swink thereNor shrink there,Though cowardly and worthyMust drink there one reward."
Words in this poem
- insistent a.
- Standing or resting on something; as, an insistent wall. Sir H. [L. insistens, -entis, p. pr. of insistere.]
- foeman n.
- An enemy in war. [AS. fhman.]
- swink v. i.
- To labor; to toil; to salve. [AS. swincan, akin to swingan. See Swing.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Epilogue is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems - First Series, Project Gutenberg ebook #37860; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: John Collings Squire, Epilogue, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/epilogue.html, id L23160.
Form and metre
Epilogue is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
See 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 A--AB distantA · more · more · insistentA · willB
- 2 C--CB tooC · last · last · toC · hillB
- 3 ----D there · hand · hand · there · swordD
- 4 ----D swarthy · there · there · worthy · rewardD
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Than farthest stars more distant, | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| A mile more, | 3 | ··· |
| A mile more, | 3 | ··· |
| A voice cries on insistent: | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| "You may smile more if you will; | 7 | ······· |
| "You may sing too and spring too; | 7 | ······· |
| But numb at last | 4 | ···· |
| And dumb at last, | 4 | ···· |
| Whatever port you cling to, | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| You must come at last to a hill. | 8 | ········ |
| "And never a man you'll find there | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| To take your hand | 4 | ···· |
| And shake your hand; | 4 | ···· |
| But when you go behind there | 7 | ······· |
| You must make your hand a sword | 7 | ······· |
| "To fence with a foeman swarthy, | 8 | ····/˘/˘ |
| And swink there | 3 | ··· |
| Nor shrink there, | 3 | ··· |
| Though cowardly and worthy | 7 | ·/˘˘·/˘ |
| Must drink there one reward." | 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.