Chafing at Enforced Idleness from Interrupted Health
Soon may the edict lapse, that on you laysThis dire compulsion of infertile days,This hardest penal toil, reluctant rest!Meanwhile I count you eminently blest,Happy from labours heretofore well done,Happy in tasks auspiciously begun.For they are blest that have not much to rue--That have not oft mis-heard the prompter's cue,Stammered and stumbled and the wrong parts played,And life a Tragedy of Errors made.
Words in this poem
- dire a.
- Ill-boding; portentous; as, dire omens. [L. dirus; of uncertain origin.]
- meanwhile n.
- The intervening time; as, in the meantime (or mean time).
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Chafing at Enforced Idleness from Interrupted Health 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, Chafing at Enforced Idleness from Interrupted Health, in The Poems of William Watson (1892–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13179, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/watson-poems/chafing-at-enforced-idleness-from-interrupted-health.html, id L11280.
Form and metre
Chafing at Enforced Idleness from Interrupted Health is 10 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 87%). 86% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 10% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDDEE laysA · daysA · restB · blestB · doneC · begunC · rueD · cueD · playedE · madeE
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Soon may the edict lapse, that on you lays | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| This dire compulsion of infertile days, | 10 | ··˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| This hardest penal toil, reluctant rest! | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| Meanwhile I count you eminently blest, | 10 | /····/˘˘˘· |
| Happy from labours heretofore well done, | 10 | /˘·/˘·˘/·· |
| Happy in tasks auspiciously begun. | 10 | /˘······/˘ |
| For they are blest that have not much to rue-- | 10 | ·········· |
| That have not oft mis-heard the prompter's cue, | 10 | ·········· |
| Stammered and stumbled and the wrong parts played, | 10 | /˘·/˘····· |
| And life a Tragedy of Errors made. | 10 | ···/˘˘·/˘· |
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.