Regret
When I was young I learnt fencingAnd was better at it than Crooked Castle.My spirit was high as the rolling cloudsAnd my fame resounded beyond the World.I took my sword to the desert sands,I drank my horse at the Nine Moors.My flags and banners flapped in the wind,And nothing was heard but the song of my drums.
War and its travels have made me sad,And a fierce anger burns within me:It’s thinking of how I’ve wasted my timeThat makes this fury tear my heart.
Words in this poem
- drank n.
- Wild oats, or darnel grass. See Drake a plant. [Cf. 3d Drake.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Regret 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, Regret, in A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #42290, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waley-chinese/regret.html, id L18772.
Form and metre
Regret is 12 lines in 2 verse paragraphs. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.3 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 25% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic pentameter, other poems in blank verse.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|
| When I was young I learnt fencing | 8 | ······/˘ |
| And was better at it than Crooked Castle. | 11 | ··/˘···/˘/˘ |
| My spirit was high as the rolling clouds | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And my fame resounded beyond the World. | 10 | ····/˘···· |
| I took my sword to the desert sands, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| I drank my horse at the Nine Moors. | 8 | ········ |
| My flags and banners flapped in the wind, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| And nothing was heard but the song of my drums. | 11 | ·/˘········ |
| War and its travels have made me sad, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| And a fierce anger burns within me: | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| It’s thinking of how I’ve wasted my time | 10 | ·/˘···/˘·· |
| That makes this fury tear my heart. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
Notes from the edition 1
Arthur Waley's notes to A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems (1918; Project Gutenberg #42290).
- Stanza 1, line 2 A famous general.
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.