True Conquerors
Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,)Old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck,Old soldiers from campaigns, with all their wounds, defeats and scars;Enough that they’ve survived at all--long life’s unflinching ones!Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all--in that alone,True conquerors o’er all the rest.
Words in this poem
- crippled a.
- Lamed; lame; disabled; impeded.
- unflinching a.
- Not flinching or shrinking; unyielding.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
True Conquerors 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, True Conquerors, in Leaves of Grass (1855–1892), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/whitman-leaves/true-conquerors.html, id L04099.
Form and metre
True Conquerors is 7 lines in a single verse paragraph. It is unrhymed, as far as the pronouncing dictionary can tell. The lines average 12.3 syllables.
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.
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Old farmers, travelers, workmen (no matter how crippled or bent,) | 16 | ·/˘/˘˘/˘·/˘·/˘·· |
| Old sailors, out of many a perilous voyage, storm and wreck, | 16 | ·/˘··/˘·/˘˘/˘··· |
| Old soldiers from campaigns, with all their wounds, defeats and scars; | 14 | ·/˘·˘/····˘/·· |
| Enough that they’ve survived at all--long life’s unflinching ones! | 14 | ˘/··˘/····˘/˘· |
| Forth from their struggles, trials, fights, to have emerged at all-- | 14 | ···/˘/˘···˘/·· |
| in that alone, | 4 | ··˘/ |
| True conquerors o’er all the rest. | 8 | ·/˘˘···· |
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.