The Saddest Hour
The saddest hour of anguish and of lossIs not that season of supreme despairWhen we can find no least light anywhereTo gild the dread, black shadow of the Cross;Not in that luxury of sorrow whenWe sup on salt of tears, and drink the gallOf memories of days beyond recall--Of lost delights that cannot come again.
But when, with eyes that are no longer wet,We look out on the great, wide world of men,And, smiling, lean toward a bright to-morrow,Then backward shrink, with sudden keen regret,To find that we are learning to forget:Ah! then we face the saddest hour of sorrow.
About this text
The Saddest Hour 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, The Saddest Hour, in Poems of Passion (1883), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16776, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wilcox-passion/the-saddest-hour.html, id L22198.
Form and metre
The Saddest Hour is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 ABBACDDC lossA · despairB · anywhereB · crossA · whenC · gallD · recallD · againC
- 2 A-BAAB wetA · men · morrowB · regretA · forgetA · sorrowB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The saddest hour of anguish and of loss | 10 | ·/˘/·/˘··· |
| Is not that season of supreme despair | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘/ |
| When we can find no least light anywhere | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| To gild the dread, black shadow of the Cross; | 10 | ·····/···· |
| Not in that luxury of sorrow when | 10 | ···/˘˘·/˘· |
| We sup on salt of tears, and drink the gall | 10 | ·········· |
| Of memories of days beyond recall-- | 10 | ·/˘˘····˘/ |
| Of lost delights that cannot come again. | 10 | ··˘/·/˘·˘/ |
| But when, with eyes that are no longer wet, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| We look out on the great, wide world of men, | 10 | ·········· |
| And, smiling, lean toward a bright to-morrow, | 11 | ·/˘······/˘ |
| Then backward shrink, with sudden keen regret, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘·˘/ |
| To find that we are learning to forget: | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| Ah! then we face the saddest hour of sorrow. | 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.