Lyric Poem · Life
Loss And Gain
When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride.
I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen short or been turned aside.
But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.
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“Loss And Gain” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — quilloak.com/poems/loss-and-gain
Quick facts
- Poem
- Loss And Gain
- Poet
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- Length
- 12 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Life
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 12 lines · 3 quatrains
- End rhyme
- ABBC in 67% of the stanzas. The remaining stanzas vary, often through slant rhyme.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow1807–1882
- Source record
- PoetryDBLoss And Gain by henry-wadsworth-longfellow, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 8ec697b6c108d85b…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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