O days and hours, your work is this
O days and hours, your work is this,To hold me from my proper place,A little while from his embrace,For fuller gain of after bliss:
That out of distance might ensueDesire of nearness doubly sweet;And unto meeting, when we meet,Delight a hundredfold accrue,
For every grain of sand that runs,And every span of shade that steals,And every kiss of toothed wheels,And all the courses of the suns.
Words in this poem
- ensue v. t.
- To follow; to pursue; to follow and overtake. [OF. ensevre, OF. & F. ensuivre, fr. L. insequi; in + sequi to pursue. See Sue.]
- hundredfold n.
- A hundred times as much or as many.
- accrue n.
- Something that accrues; advantage accruing. [F. accrû, OF. acreü, p. p. of accroitre, OF. acroistre to increase; L. ad + crescere to increase. Cf. Accretion, Crew. See Crescent.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
O days and hours, your work is this 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, O days and hours, your work is this, in In Memoriam A.H.H. (1850), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #70950, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-in-memoriam/section-115.html, id L18475.
Form and metre
O days and hours, your work is this is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%). 96% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 8% 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 thisA · placeB · embraceB · blissA
- 2 ABBA ensueA · sweetB · meetB · accrueA
- 3 ABBA runsA · stealsB · wheelsB · sunsA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O days and hours, your work is this, | 8 | ···/···· |
| To hold me from my proper place, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| A little while from his embrace, | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| For fuller gain of after bliss: | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| That out of distance might ensue | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Desire of nearness doubly sweet; | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| And unto meeting, when we meet, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Delight a hundredfold accrue, | 8 | ˘/·/˘˘˘/ |
| For every grain of sand that runs, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And every span of shade that steals, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And every kiss of toothed wheels, | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
| And all the courses of the suns. | 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.