Maud Part II III
Courage, poor heart of stone!I will not ask thee whyThou canst not understandThat thou art left for ever alone:Courage, poor stupid heart of stone.--Or if I ask thee why,Care not thou to reply:She is but dead, and the time is at handWhen thou shalt more than die.
Words in this poem
- shalt
- 2d per. sing. of Shall.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Maud Part II III is in the public domain. This text is taken from Maud, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #56913; 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, Maud Part II III, in Maud, and Other Poems (1855), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56913, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/tennyson-poems/maud-part-ii-iii.html, id L25353.
Form and metre
Maud Part II III is 9 lines in a single stanza. It rhymes ABCAABBCB. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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 ABCAABBCB stoneA · whyB · understandC · aloneA · stoneA · whyB · replyB · handC · dieB
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Courage, poor heart of stone! | 6 | /˘···· |
| I will not ask thee why | 6 | ······ |
| Thou canst not understand | 6 | ····˘/ |
| That thou art left for ever alone: | 8 | ·····/˘/ |
| Courage, poor stupid heart of stone.-- | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| Or if I ask thee why, | 6 | ······ |
| Care not thou to reply: | 6 | ····˘/ |
| She is but dead, and the time is at hand | 10 | ·········· |
| When thou shalt more than die. | 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.