Momentous to himself as I to me
Momentous to himself as I to meHath each man been that ever woman bore;Once, in a lightning-flash of sympathy,I felt this truth, an instant, and no more.
Words in this poem
- momentous a.
- Of moment or consequence; very important; weighty; as, a momentous decision; momentous affairs. [Cf. L. momentosus rapid, momentary.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Momentous to himself as I to me 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, Momentous to himself as I to me, in The Poems of William Watson (1892–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13179, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/watson-poems/momentous-to-himself-as-i-to-me.html, id L26227.
Form and metre
Momentous to himself as I to me is 4 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter.
See 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 -A-A me · boreA · sympathy · moreA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Momentous to himself as I to me | 10 | ˘/˘·˘/···· |
| Hath each man been that ever woman bore; | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| Once, in a lightning-flash of sympathy, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘˘ |
| I felt this truth, an instant, and no more. | 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.