Lives there whom pain hath evermore pass'd by
Lives there whom pain hath evermore pass'd byAnd Sorrow shunn'd with an averted eye?Him do thou pity, him above the rest,Him of all hapless mortals most unbless'd.
Words in this poem
- evermore adv.
- During eternity; always; forever; for an indefinite period; at all times; -- often used substantively with for.
- averted a.
- Turned away, esp. as an expression of feeling; also, offended; unpropitious.
- hapless a.
- Without hap or luck; luckless; unfortunate; unlucky; unhappy; as, hapless youth; hapless maid.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Lives there whom pain hath evermore pass'd by 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, Lives there whom pain hath evermore pass'd by, in The Poems of William Watson (1892–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13179, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/watson-poems/lives-there-whom-pain-hath-evermore-pass-d-by.html, id L26231.
Form and metre
Lives there whom pain hath evermore pass'd by is 4 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 50% of the lines: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
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 AA-- byA · eyeA · rest · unbless'd
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Lives there whom pain hath evermore pass'd by | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And Sorrow shunn'd with an averted eye? | 10 | ·/˘···˘/˘· |
| Him do thou pity, him above the rest, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Him of all hapless mortals most unbless'd. | 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.