The Other
No hooded band of fates did stand your heart's ambitions to gainsay,No flaming brand in evil hand was ever thrust across your way,Only the things all men must meet, the common attributes of men,That men may flinch to see or, seeing, deny, but avoid them no man may.
Fall the dice, not once or twice but always, to make the self-same sum;Chance what may, a life's a life and to a single goal must come;Though a man search far and wide, never is hunger satisfied;Nature brings her natural fetters, man is meshed and the wise are dumb.
O vain all art to assuage a heart with accents of a mortal tongue,All earthly words are incomplete and only sweet are the songs unsung,Never yet was cause for regret, yet regret must afflict us all,Better it were to grasp the world 'thwart which this world is acurtain flung.
Words in this poem
- avoid v. t.
- To empty. Wyclif. [OF. esvuidier, es (L. ex) + vuidier, voidier, to empty. See Void, a.]
- meshed a.
- Mashed; brewed.
- afflict v. t.
- To strike or cast down; to overthrow. [L. afflictus, p. p. of affigere to cast down, deject; ad + fligere to strike: cf. OF. aflit, afflict, p. p. Cf. Flagellate.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Other 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, The Other, in Poems: First Series (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #37860, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/squire-poems/the-other-3.html, id L23165.
Form and metre
The Other is 13 lines in 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic octameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%).
See other poems in iambic octameter.
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 AA-A gainsayA · wayA · men · mayA
- 2 AA-A sumA · comeA · satisfied · dumbA
- 3 AA--A tongueA · unsungA · all · a · flungA
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 octameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| No hooded band of fates did stand your heart's ambitions to gainsay, | 16 | ·/˘·······˘/˘·/· |
| No flaming brand in evil hand was ever thrust across your way, | 14 | ·/˘··/··/·˘/·· |
| Only the things all men must meet, the common attributes of men, | 16 | /˘·······/˘/˘··· |
| That men may flinch to see or, seeing, deny, but avoid them no man may. | 17 | ·······/˘/·˘/···· |
| Fall the dice, not once or twice but always, to make the self-same sum; | 16 | ········/······· |
| Chance what may, a life's a life and to a single goal must come; | 15 | ··········/˘··· |
| Though a man search far and wide, never is hunger satisfied; | 14 | ·······/·/˘/˘· |
| Nature brings her natural fetters, man is meshed and the wise are dumb. | 16 | /˘··/˘/˘········ |
| O vain all art to assuage a heart with accents of a mortal tongue, | 17 | ·····˘/···/˘··/˘· |
| All earthly words are incomplete and only sweet are the songs unsung, | 16 | ·/˘··˘/·/˘····˘/ |
| Never yet was cause for regret, yet regret must afflict us all, | 15 | /····˘/·˘/·˘/·· |
| Better it were to grasp the world 'thwart which this world is a | 14 | /˘············ |
| curtain flung. | 3 | /˘· |
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.