The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner
I had a chair at every hearth,When no one turned to see,With "Look at that old fellow there,"And who may he be?"And therefore do I wander now,And the fret lies on me.
The road-side trees keep murmuringAh, wherefore murmur ye,As in the old days long gone by,Green oak and poplar tree?The well-known faces are all goneAnd the fret lies on me.
Words in this poem
- wherefore adv.
- For which reason; so; -- used relatively. [Where + for.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #38877; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: W. B. Yeats, The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner, in Poems (1895), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #38877, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/yeats-poems/the-lamentation-of-the-old-pensioner.html, id L16664.
Form and metre
The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner is 12 lines in 2 stanzas of 6 lines each. The metre is iambic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 79%). 94% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 17% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic trimeter.
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-A hearth · seeA · there · beA · now · meA
- 2 -AAA-A murmuring · yeA · byA · treeA · gone · meA
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 trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| I had a chair at every hearth, | 9 | ·····/˘˘· |
| When no one turned to see, | 6 | ······ |
| With "Look at that old fellow there, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| "And who may he be?" | 5 | ····· |
| And therefore do I wander now, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| And the fret lies on me. | 6 | ······ |
| The road-side trees keep murmuring | 8 | ·····/˘˘ |
| Ah, wherefore murmur ye, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| As in the old days long gone by, | 8 | ········ |
| Green oak and poplar tree? | 6 | ···/˘· |
| The well-known faces are all gone | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And the fret lies on me. | 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.