Survival
WHEN you and I, like all things kind or cruel,The garnered days and light evasive hours,Are gone again to be a part of flowersAnd tears and tides, in life's divine renewal,
If some grey eve to certain eyes should wearA deeper radiance than mere light can give,Some silent page abruptly flush and live,May it not be that you and I are there?
Words in this poem
- evasive a.
- Tending to evade, or marked by evasion; elusive; shuffling; avoiding by artifice. [Cf. F. évasif. See Evade.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Survival is in the public domain. This text is taken from Artemis to Actaeon, and Other Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #4549; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edith Wharton, Survival, in Artemis to Actaeon, and Other Verse (1909), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #4549, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wharton-artemis/survival.html, id L22248.
Form and metre
Survival is 8 lines in 2 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABBA. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
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 ABBA cruelA · hoursB · flowersB · renewalA
- 2 ABBA wearA · giveB · liveB · thereA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| WHEN you and I, like all things kind or cruel, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| The garnered days and light evasive hours, | 11 | ·/˘···˘/˘/˘ |
| Are gone again to be a part of flowers | 11 | ··˘/·····/˘ |
| And tears and tides, in life's divine renewal, | 11 | ······˘/˘/˘ |
| If some grey eve to certain eyes should wear | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| A deeper radiance than mere light can give, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Some silent page abruptly flush and live, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘··· |
| May it not be that you and I are there? | 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.