A Bivouac
You came without a human sound,You came and brought my soul to me;I only woke, and all aroundThey slumbered on the firelit ground,Beside the guns in Burgundy.
I felt the gesture of your hands,You signed my forehead with the Cross;The gesture of your holy handsWas bounteous--like the misty landsAlong the Hills in Calvados.
But when I slept I saw your eyes,Hungry as death, and very far.I saw demand in your dim eyesMysterious as the moons that riseAt midnight, in the Pines of Var.
Words in this poem
- burgundy n.
- An old province of France (in the eastern central part).
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
A Bivouac is in the public domain. This text is taken from Sonnets and Verse, Project Gutenberg ebook #60663; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Hilaire Belloc, A Bivouac, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/a-bivouac.html, id L21655.
Form and metre
A Bivouac is 15 lines in 3 stanzas of 5 lines each. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%).
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 A-AA- soundA · me · aroundA · groundA · burgundy
- 2 A-AA- handsA · cross · handsA · landsA · calvados
- 3 ABAAB eyesA · farB · eyesA · riseA · varB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| You came without a human sound, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| You came and brought my soul to me; | 8 | ········ |
| I only woke, and all around | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| They slumbered on the firelit ground, | 9 | ·/˘······ |
| Beside the guns in Burgundy. | 8 | ˘/···/˘˘ |
| I felt the gesture of your hands, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| You signed my forehead with the Cross; | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| The gesture of your holy hands | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Was bounteous--like the misty lands | 9 | ·/˘˘··/˘· |
| Along the Hills in Calvados. | 8 | ˘/······ |
| But when I slept I saw your eyes, | 8 | ········ |
| Hungry as death, and very far. | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| I saw demand in your dim eyes | 8 | ··˘/···· |
| Mysterious as the moons that rise | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| At midnight, in the Pines of Var. | 8 | ·/······ |
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.