High wisdom holds my wisdom less
High wisdom holds my wisdom less,That I, who gaze with temperate eyesOn glorious insufficiencies,Set light by narrower perfectness.
But thou, that fillest all the roomOf all my love, art reason whyI seem to cast a careless eyeOn souls, the lesser lords of doom.
For what wert thou? some novel powerSprang up for ever at a touch,And hope could never hope too much,In watching thee from hour to hour,
Large elements in order brought,And tracts of calm from tempest made,And world-wide fluctuation sway’dIn vassal tides that followed thought.
Words in this poem
- glorious a.
- Exhibiting attributes, qualities, or acts that are worthy of or receive glory; noble; praiseworthy; excellent; splendid; illustrious; inspiring admiration; as, glorious deeds. [OF. glorios, glorious, F. glorieux, fr. L. gloriosus. See Glory, n.]
- perfectness n.
- The quality or state of being perfect; perfection.
- fluctuation n.
- A motion like that of waves; a moving in this and that direction; as, the fluctuations of the sea. [L. fluctuatio; cf. F. fluctuation.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
High wisdom holds my wisdom less is in the public domain. This text is taken from In memoriam, Project Gutenberg ebook #70950; 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, High wisdom holds my wisdom less, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-110.html, id L18470.
Form and metre
High wisdom holds my wisdom less is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 38% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 ABBA lessA · eyesB · insufficienciesB · perfectnessA
- 2 ABBA roomA · whyB · eyeB · doomA
- 3 ABBA powerA · touchB · muchB · hourA
- 4 ABBA broughtA · madeB · sway'dB · thoughtA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| High wisdom holds my wisdom less, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| That I, who gaze with temperate eyes | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| On glorious insufficiencies, | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| Set light by narrower perfectness. | 9 | ···/˘˘/˘˘ |
| But thou, that fillest all the room | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Of all my love, art reason why | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I seem to cast a careless eye | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| On souls, the lesser lords of doom. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| For what wert thou? some novel power | 9 | ·····/˘/˘ |
| Sprang up for ever at a touch, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And hope could never hope too much, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| In watching thee from hour to hour, | 9 | ·/˘··/·/˘ |
| Large elements in order brought, | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| And tracts of calm from tempest made, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And world-wide fluctuation sway’d | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| In vassal tides that followed thought. | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
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.