Continuities
Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost,No birth, identity, form--no object of the world.Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing;Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain.Ample are time and space--ample the fields of Nature.The body, sluggish, aged, cold--the embers left from earlier fires,The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual;To frozen clods ever the spring’s invisible law returns,With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn.
Words in this poem
- 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
Continuities is in the public domain. This text is taken from Leaves of Grass, Project Gutenberg ebook #1322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Walt Whitman, Continuities, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/continuities.html, id L04097.
Form and metre
Continuities is 10 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic hexameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 69% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 13.8 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending.
See other poems in iambic hexameter.
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--- lost · world · thing · brainA · nature · fires · againA · continual · returns · corn
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 hexameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost, | 12 | /˘·/˘/˘····· |
| No birth, identity, form--no object of the world. | 13 | ··˘/˘˘··/˘··· |
| Nor life, nor force, nor any visible thing; | 11 | ·····/˘/˘˘· |
| Appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain. | 14 | ˘/˘····/˘·˘/·· |
| Ample are time and space--ample the fields of Nature. | 13 | /˘····/˘···/˘ |
| The body, sluggish, aged, cold--the embers left from earlier fires, | 17 | ·/˘/˘···/˘··/˘˘/˘ |
| The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again; | 13 | ········/˘·˘/ |
| The sun now low in the west rises for mornings and for noons continual; | 19 | ·······/˘·/˘···˘/˘˘ |
| To frozen clods ever the spring’s invisible law returns, | 15 | ·/˘·/˘··˘/˘˘·˘/ |
| With grass and flowers and summer fruits and corn. | 11 | ···/˘·/˘··· |
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.