Sonnet (“Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good”)
Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good,Or propagate again her loathed kind,Thronging the cells of the diseased mind,Hateful with hanging cheeks, a withered brood,Though hourly pastured on the salient blood?Oh! that the wind which bloweth cold or heatWould shatter and o’erbear the brazen beatOf their broad vans, and in the solitudeOf middle space confound them, and blow backTheir wild cries down their cavernthroats, and slakeWith points of blastborne hail their heated eyne!So their wan limbs no more might come betweenThe moon and the moon’s reflex in the night;Nor blot with floating shades the solar light.
Words in this poem
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
- hateful a.
- Manifesting hate or hatred; malignant; malevolent.
- hourly a.
- Happening or done every hour; occurring hour by hour; frequent; often repeated; renewed hour by hour; continual.
- eyne n.
- Plural of eye; obsolete, or used only in poetry.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Sonnet (“Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good”) is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Project Gutenberg ebook #8601; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Alfred Tennyson, Sonnet (“Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good”), in The Early Poems (1830–1842), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8601, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-early-poems/sonnet-shall-the-hag-evil-die-with-child-of-good.html, id L20772.
Form and metre
Sonnet (“Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good”) is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 ABBCADDC----EE goodA · kindB · mindB · broodC · bloodA · heatD · beatD · solitudeC · back · slake · eyne · between · nightE · lightE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Shall the hag Evil die with child of Good, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Or propagate again her loathed kind, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/··˘· |
| Thronging the cells of the diseased mind, | 10 | /˘····˘/˘· |
| Hateful with hanging cheeks, a withered brood, | 10 | /˘·/˘··/˘· |
| Though hourly pastured on the salient blood? | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Oh! that the wind which bloweth cold or heat | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Would shatter and o’erbear the brazen beat | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Of their broad vans, and in the solitude | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| Of middle space confound them, and blow back | 10 | ·/˘·˘/···· |
| Their wild cries down their cavernthroats, and slake | 10 | ·········· |
| With points of blastborne hail their heated eyne! | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| So their wan limbs no more might come between | 10 | ·········· |
| The moon and the moon’s reflex in the night; | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Nor blot with floating shades the solar light. | 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.