World-Strangeness
Strange the world about me lies,Never yet familiar grown--Still disturbs me with surprise,Haunts me like a face half known.
In this house with starry dome,Floored with gemlike plains and seas,Shall I never feel at home,Never wholly be at ease?
On from room to room I stray,Yet my Host can ne'er espy,And I know not to this dayWhether guest or captive I.
So, between the starry domeAnd the floor of plains and seas,I have never felt at home,Never wholly been at ease.
Words in this poem
- starry a.
- Abounding with stars; adorned with stars.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
World-Strangeness 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, World-Strangeness, in The Poems of William Watson (1892–1905), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #13179, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/watson-poems/world-strangeness.html, id L11246.
Form and metre
World-Strangeness is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 3 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%). 100% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 12% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 liesA · grownB · surpriseA · knownB
- 2 ABAB domeA · seasB · homeA · easeB
- 3 A-A- strayA · espy · dayA · i
- 4 ABAB domeA · seasB · homeA · easeB
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Strange the world about me lies, | 7 | ······· |
| Never yet familiar grown-- | 7 | /˘·˘/˘· |
| Still disturbs me with surprise, | 7 | ·˘/··˘/ |
| Haunts me like a face half known. | 7 | ······· |
| In this house with starry dome, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Floored with gemlike plains and seas, | 7 | ······· |
| Shall I never feel at home, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Never wholly be at ease? | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
| On from room to room I stray, | 7 | ······· |
| Yet my Host can ne'er espy, | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| And I know not to this day | 7 | ······· |
| Whether guest or captive I. | 7 | ····/˘· |
| So, between the starry dome | 7 | ····/˘· |
| And the floor of plains and seas, | 7 | ······· |
| I have never felt at home, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| Never wholly been at ease. | 7 | /˘/˘··· |
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.