Mockery
Why do we grudge our sweets so to the livingWho, God knows, find at best too much of gall,And then with generous, open hands kneel, givingUnto the dead our all?
Why do we pierce the warm hearts, sin or sorrow,With idle jests, or scorn, or cruel sneers,And when it cannot know, on some to-morrow,Speak of its woe through tears?
What do the dead care, for the tender token--The love, the praise, the floral offerings?But palpitating, living hearts are brokenFor want of just these things.
Words in this poem
- generous a.
- Of honorable birth or origin; highborn. [F. généreux, fr. L. generous of noble birth, noble, excellent, magnanimous, fr. genus birth, race: cf. It. generoso. See 2d Gender.]
- kneel v. i.
- To bend the knee; to fall or rest on the knees; -- sometimes with down. [OE. knelen, cneolien; akin to D. knielen, Dan. knæle. See Knee.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Mockery is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of Passion, Project Gutenberg ebook #16776; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Mockery, in Poems of Passion (1883), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16776, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wilcox-passion/mockery.html, id L22184.
Form and metre
Mockery is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%).
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 ABAB livingA · gallB · givingA · allB
- 2 ABAB sorrowA · sneersB · morrowA · tearsB
- 3 ABAB tokenA · offeringsB · brokenA · thingsB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Why do we grudge our sweets so to the living | 11 | ····/····/˘ |
| Who, God knows, find at best too much of gall, | 10 | ·········· |
| And then with generous, open hands kneel, giving | 11 | ···/˘/˘··/˘ |
| Unto the dead our all? | 7 | ····/˘· |
| Why do we pierce the warm hearts, sin or sorrow, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| With idle jests, or scorn, or cruel sneers, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| And when it cannot know, on some to-morrow, | 11 | ···/˘····/˘ |
| Speak of its woe through tears? | 6 | ······ |
| What do the dead care, for the tender token-- | 11 | ·······/˘/˘ |
| The love, the praise, the floral offerings? | 10 | ·····/˘/˘˘ |
| But palpitating, living hearts are broken | 11 | ·/˘˘˘/˘··/˘ |
| For want of just these things. | 6 | ······ |
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.