Ode to Peace II. 3
How startled Frenzy stares,Bristling her ragged hairs!Revenge the gory fragment gnaws;See, with her griping vulture-clawsImprinted deep, she rends the opening wound!Hatred her torch blue-streaming tosses round:The shrieks of agony and clang of armsRe-echo to the fierce alarmsHer trump terrific blows.Disparting from behind, the clouds discloseOf kingly gesture a gigantic form,That with his scourge sublime directs the whirling storm.
Words in this poem
- gory a.
- Covered with gore or clotted blood. [From Gore.]
- streaming a.
- Sending forth streams.
- clang v. t.
- To strike together so as to produce a ringing metallic sound. [L. clangere; akin to Gr. clank.]
- scourge n.
- A lash; a strap or cord; especially, a lash used to inflict pain or punishment; an instrument of punishment or discipline; a whip. [F. escourgée, fr. L. excoriata (sc. scutica) a stripped off (lash or whip), fr. excoriate to strip, to skin. See Excoriate.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Ode to Peace 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 Peace 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-peace-ii-3.html, id L09595.
Form and metre
Ode to Peace II. 3 is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic pentameter. 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.8 syllables. 33% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
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 AABBCCDDEEFF staresA · hairsA · gnawsB · clawsB · woundC · roundC · armsD · alarmsD · blowsE · discloseE · formF · stormF
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 pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| How startled Frenzy stares, | 6 | ·/˘/˘· |
| Bristling her ragged hairs! | 7 | /˘˘·/˘· |
| Revenge the gory fragment gnaws; | 8 | ˘/·/˘/˘· |
| See, with her griping vulture-claws | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Imprinted deep, she rends the opening wound! | 10 | ˘/˘····/˘· |
| Hatred her torch blue-streaming tosses round: | 10 | /˘···/˘/˘· |
| The shrieks of agony and clang of arms | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| Re-echo to the fierce alarms | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| Her trump terrific blows. | 6 | ··˘/˘· |
| Disparting from behind, the clouds disclose | 10 | ········˘/ |
| Of kingly gesture a gigantic form, | 10 | ·/˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| That with his scourge sublime directs the whirling storm. | 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.