Illness
Sad, sad--lean with long illness;Monotonous, monotonous--days and nights pass.The summer trees have clad themselves in shade;The autumn “lan” already houses the dew.The eggs that lay in the nest when I took to bedHave changed into little birds and flown away.The worm that then lay hidden in its holeHas hatched into a cricket sitting on the tree.The Four Seasons go on for ever and ever:In all Nature nothing stops to restEven for a moment. Only the sick man’s heartDeep down still aches as of old!
Words in this poem
- illness n.
- The condition of being ill, evil, or bad; badness; unfavorableness. [From Ill.]
- clad v.
- To clothe. Holland.
- flown a.
- Flushed, inflated.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Illness is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, the Arthur Waley translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Various, Illness, in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/illness.html, id L18824.
Form and metre
Illness is 12 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 80%). 95% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.4 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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---------- illnessA · passA · shade · dew · bed · away · hole · tree · ever · rest · heart · old
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Sad, sad--lean with long illness; | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Monotonous, monotonous--days and nights pass. | 12 | ˘/˘˘˘/˘˘···· |
| The summer trees have clad themselves in shade; | 10 | ·/˘···˘/·· |
| The autumn “lan” already houses the dew. | 11 | ·/˘·˘/˘/˘·· |
| The eggs that lay in the nest when I took to bed | 12 | ············ |
| Have changed into little birds and flown away. | 11 | ····/˘···˘/ |
| The worm that then lay hidden in its hole | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Has hatched into a cricket sitting on the tree. | 12 | ·····/˘/˘··· |
| The Four Seasons go on for ever and ever: | 12 | ··/˘···/˘·/˘ |
| In all Nature nothing stops to rest | 9 | ··/˘/˘··· |
| Even for a moment. Only the sick man’s heart | 12 | /˘··/˘/˘···· |
| Deep down still aches as of old! | 7 | ······· |
Notes from the edition 1
Arthur Waley's notes to A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918; Project Gutenberg #42290).
- Line 4 The epidendrum.
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.