The Tiger
In the still jungle of the senses layA tiger soundly sleeping, till one dayA bold young hunter chanced to come that way.
"How calm," he said, "that splendid creature lies!I long to rouse him into swift surprise."The well aimed arrow shot from amorous eyes,
And lo! the tiger rouses up and turns,A coal of fire his glowing eyeball burns,His mighty frame with savage hunger yearns.
He crouches for a spring; his eyes dilate--Alas! bold hunter, what shall be thy fate?Thou canst not fly; it is too late, too late.
Once having tasted human flesh, ah! then,Woe, woe unto the whole rash world of men.The wakened tiger will not sleep again.
Words in this poem
- jungle n.
- A dense growth of brushwood, grasses, reeds, vines, etc.; an almost impenetrable thicket of trees, canes, and reedy vegetation, as in India, Africa, Australia, and Brazil. [Hind. jangal desert, forest, jungle; Skr. ja desert.]
- 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
The Tiger 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 Tiger, in Poems of Passion (1883), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #16776, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/wilcox-passion/the-tiger.html, id L22207.
Form and metre
The Tiger is 15 lines in 5 stanzas of 3 lines each. It is in rhyming couplets, 67% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 93%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, 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 AAA layA · dayA · wayA
- 2 AAA liesA · surpriseA · eyesA
- 3 AAA turnsA · burnsA · yearnsA
- 4 AAA dilateA · fateA · lateA
- 5 AAA thenA · menA · againA
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 |
|---|---|---|
| In the still jungle of the senses lay | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| A tiger soundly sleeping, till one day | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| A bold young hunter chanced to come that way. | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| "How calm," he said, "that splendid creature lies! | 10 | ·····/˘/˘· |
| I long to rouse him into swift surprise." | 10 | ········˘/ |
| The well aimed arrow shot from amorous eyes, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And lo! the tiger rouses up and turns, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| A coal of fire his glowing eyeball burns, | 10 | ···/·/˘/·· |
| His mighty frame with savage hunger yearns. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| He crouches for a spring; his eyes dilate-- | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| Alas! bold hunter, what shall be thy fate? | 10 | ˘/·/˘····· |
| Thou canst not fly; it is too late, too late. | 10 | ·········· |
| Once having tasted human flesh, ah! then, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Woe, woe unto the whole rash world of men. | 10 | ·········· |
| The wakened tiger will not sleep again. | 10 | ·/˘/˘···˘/ |
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.