Ode to Hope II. 3
Frail man, how various is thy lot below!To-day though gales propitious blow,And Peace soft gliding down the skyLead Love along and Harmony,To-morrow the gay scene deforms!Then all aroundThe Thunder's soundRolls rattling on through Heaven's profound,And down rush all the storms.Ye days that balmy influence shed,When sweet childhood, ever sprightly,In paths of pleasure sported lightly,Whither, ah! whither are ye fled?Ye cherub train, that brought him on his way,O leave him not 'midst tumult and dismay;For now youth's eminence he gains;But what a weary length of lingering toil remains!
Words in this poem
- balmy a.
- Having the qualities of balm; odoriferous; aromatic; assuaging; soothing; refreshing; mild.
- childhood n.
- The state of being a child; the time in which persons are children; the condition or time from infancy to puberty. [AS. cildhad; cild child + -had. See Child, and hood.]
- whither adv.
- To what place; -- used interrogatively; as, whither goest thou [OE. whider. AS. hwider; akin to E. where, who; cf. Goth. hvadre whither. See Who, and cf. Hither, Thither.]
- cherub n.
- A mysterious composite being, the winged footstool and chariot of the Almighty, described in Ezekiel i. and x. [Heb. kerub.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Ode to Hope II. 3 is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes, Project Gutenberg ebook #8695; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: James Beattie, Ode to Hope II. 3, in The Minstrel and Other Poems (1771–1774), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #8695, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/beattie-minstrel/ode-to-hope-ii-3.html, id L09586.
Form and metre
Ode to Hope II. 3 is 17 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%). 91% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.2 syllables. 3 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 18% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 AA--BCCCBDEEDFFGG belowA · blowA · sky · harmony · deformsB · aroundC · soundC · profoundC · stormsB · shedD · sprightlyE · lightlyE · fledD · wayF · dismayF · gainsG · remainsG
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Frail man, how various is thy lot below! | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| To-day though gales propitious blow, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| And Peace soft gliding down the sky | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Lead Love along and Harmony, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘˘ |
| To-morrow the gay scene deforms! | 8 | ·/˘····/ |
| Then all around | 4 | ···· |
| The Thunder's sound | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Rolls rattling on through Heaven's profound, | 9 | ·/˘··/˘˘/ |
| And down rush all the storms. | 6 | ······ |
| Ye days that balmy influence shed, | 9 | ···/˘/˘˘· |
| When sweet childhood, ever sprightly, | 8 | ··/·/˘/˘ |
| In paths of pleasure sported lightly, | 9 | ···/˘/˘/˘ |
| Whither, ah! whither are ye fled? | 8 | /˘·/˘··· |
| Ye cherub train, that brought him on his way, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| O leave him not 'midst tumult and dismay; | 10 | ·····/˘·˘/ |
| For now youth's eminence he gains; | 8 | ···/˘˘·· |
| But what a weary length of lingering toil remains! | 12 | ···/˘··/˘·˘/ |
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.