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Blank Verse

Definition: blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter

We are all doomed to broken-off careers,

And so’s the nation, so’s the total race.

The earth itself is liable to that fate

Of meaninglessly being broken off.

(And hence so many literary tears

At which my inclination is to scoff.)

I may have wept that any should have died

Or missed their chance, or not have been their best,

Or been their riches, fame, or love denied;

On me as much as any is the jest.

I take my incompleteness with the rest.

God bless himself can no one else be blessed.

O hold your doctrine of Memento Mori.

And were an epitaph to be my story

I’d have a short one ready for my own.

I would have written of me on my stone:

I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,

What, what is he to do? I saw it go

Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then

Merrily over-there it is in the water!

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