Analysis of Quare Fatigasti
Two years ago I was thinking
On the changes that years bring forth ;
Now I stand where I then stood drinking
The gust and the salt sea froth ;
And the shuddering wave strikes, linking
With the waves subsiding and sinking,
And clots the coast herbage, shrinking,
With the hue of the white cere-cloth.
Is there aught worth losing or keeping ?
The bitters or sweets men quaff ?
The sowing or the doubtful reaping ?
The harvest of grain or chaff ?
Or squandering days or heaping,
Or waking seasons or sleeping,
The laughter that dries the weeping,
Or the weeping that drowns the laugh ?
For joys wax dim and woes deaden,
We forget the sorrowful biers,
And the garlands glad that have fled in
The merciful march of years ;
And the sunny skies, and the leaden,
And the faces that pale or redden,
And the smiles that lovers are wed in
Who are born and buried in tears.
And the myrtle bloom turns hoary,
And the blush of the rose decays,
And sodden with sweat and gory
Are the hard won laurels and bays ;
We are neither joyous nor sorry
When time has ended our story,
And blotted out grief and glory,
And pain, and pleasure, and praise.
Weigh justly, throw good and bad in
The scales, will the balance veer
With the joys or the sorrows had in
The sum of a life's career ?
In the end, spite of dreams that sadden
The sad, or the sanguine madden,
There is nothing to grieve or gladden,
There is nothing to hope or fear.
'Thou hast gone astray,' quoth the preacher,
'In the gall of thy bitterness,'
Thou hast taught me in vain, oh, teacher !
I neither blame thee nor bless ;
If bitter is sure and sweet sure,
These vanish with form and feature—
Can the creature fathom the creature
Whose Creator is fathomless ?
Is this dry land sure ? Is the sea sure ?
Is there aught that shall long remain,
Pain, or peril, or pleasure,
Pleasure, or peril, or pain ?
Shall we labour or take our leisure,
And who shall inherit treasure,
If the measure with which we measure
Is meted to us again ?
I am slow in learning, and swift in
Forgetting, and I have grown
So weary with long sand sifting ;
T'wards the mist where the breakers moan
The rudderless bark is drifting,
Through the shoals and the quicksands shifting—
In the end shall the night-rack lifting,
Discover the shores unknown ?
Scheme | AXABAAAB ACACAAAC DEFXDDFX GHGHGGGH FIFIDDDI JXJXKJJE KLJLJJJX FMAMAAAM |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 11011110 10101111 111111110 0100111 001001110 101010010 0101110 10110111 111110110 0101111 010101010 0101111 11001110 11010110 01011010 10101101 11110110 10101001 00111110 0100111 001010010 001011110 001110110 11101001 00101110 00110101 01011010 10111001 111010110 111101010 01011010 0101001 11011010 0110101 101101010 0110101 001111110 01101010 111011110 11101111 111011010 00111100 111101110 1101111 11011011 11011010 101010010 101011 111111011 11111101 1110110 1011011 111111010 01101010 101011110 1101101 111010010 0100111 11011110 110110101 01001110 10100110 001101110 0100101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,217 |
Words | 413 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8 |
Lines Amount | 64 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 7 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 220 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 54 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 2:04 min read
- 141 Views
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"Quare Fatigasti" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/175/quare-fatigasti>.
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