"And These—Are These Indeed the End"
And these--are these indeed the end,This grinning skull, this heavy loam?Do all green ways whereby we wendLead but to yon ignoble home?
Ah well! Thine eyes invite to bliss;Thy lips are hives of summer still.I ask not other worlds while thisProffers me all the sweets I will.
Words in this poem
- wend n.
- A large extent of ground; a perambulation; a circuit.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
"And These—Are These Indeed the End" is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poems of William Watson, Project Gutenberg ebook #13179; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Watson, "And These—Are These Indeed the End", in The Poems of William Watson (1892–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13179, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/watson-poems/and-these-are-these-indeed-the-end.html, id L11276.
Form and metre
"And These—Are These Indeed the End" is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 95%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.0 syllables. 25% 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 ABAB endA · loamB · wendA · homeB
- 2 ABAB blissA · stillB · thisA · willB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And these--are these indeed the end, | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| This grinning skull, this heavy loam? | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Do all green ways whereby we wend | 8 | ········ |
| Lead but to yon ignoble home? | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| Ah well! Thine eyes invite to bliss; | 8 | ····˘/·· |
| Thy lips are hives of summer still. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| I ask not other worlds while this | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Proffers me all the sweets I will. | 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.