Solitude
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;Weep, and you weep alone;For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,But has trouble enough of its own.Sing, and the hills will answer;Sigh, it is lost on the air;The echoes bound to a joyful sound,But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;Grieve, and they turn and go;They want full measure of all your pleasure,But they do not need your woe.Be glad, and your friends are many;Be sad, and you lose them all;There are none to decline your nectar'd wine,But alone you must drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;Fast, and the world goes by.Succeed and give, and it helps you live,But no man can help you die.There is room in the halls of pleasureFor a large and lordly train,But one by one we must all file onThrough the narrow aisles of pain.
Words in this poem
- borrow v. t.
- To receive from another as a loan, with the implied or expressed intention of returning the identical article or its equivalent in kind; -- the opposite of lend. [OE. borwen, AS. borgian, fr. borg, borh, pledge; akin to D. borg, G. borg; prob. fr. root of AS. beorgan to protect. Borough.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Solitude 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, Solitude, in Poems of Passion (1883), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16776, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wilcox-passion/solitude.html, id L22204.
Form and metre
Solitude is 24 lines in 3 stanzas of 8 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 81%).
See other poems in iambic 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 -A-A-B-B you · aloneA · mirth · ownA · answer · airB · sound · careB
- 2 -A-A-B-B you · goA · pleasure · woeA · many · allB · wine · gallB
- 3 -A-A-B-B crowded · byA · live · dieA · pleasure · trainB · on · painB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Laugh, and the world laughs with you; | 7 | ······· |
| Weep, and you weep alone; | 6 | ····˘/ |
| For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, | 10 | ······/··· |
| But has trouble enough of its own. | 9 | ··/˘˘/··· |
| Sing, and the hills will answer; | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Sigh, it is lost on the air; | 7 | ······· |
| The echoes bound to a joyful sound, | 9 | ·/˘···/˘· |
| But shrink from voicing care. | 6 | ···/˘· |
| Rejoice, and men will seek you; | 7 | ˘/····· |
| Grieve, and they turn and go; | 6 | ······ |
| They want full measure of all your pleasure, | 10 | ···/˘···/˘ |
| But they do not need your woe. | 7 | ······· |
| Be glad, and your friends are many; | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Be sad, and you lose them all; | 7 | ······· |
| There are none to decline your nectar'd wine, | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| But alone you must drink life's gall. | 8 | ·˘/····· |
| Feast, and your halls are crowded; | 7 | ·····/˘ |
| Fast, and the world goes by. | 6 | ······ |
| Succeed and give, and it helps you live, | 9 | ˘/······· |
| But no man can help you die. | 7 | ······· |
| There is room in the halls of pleasure | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| For a large and lordly train, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| But one by one we must all file on | 9 | ········· |
| Through the narrow aisles of pain. | 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.