Homage II
For you are younger than the mornings areThat in the mountains break;When upland shepherds see their only starPale on the dawn, and makeIn his surcease the hours,The early hours of all their happy circuit take.
Words in this poem
- surcease v. t.
- To cause to cease; to end.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Homage II 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, Homage II, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/homage-ii.html, id L21666.
Form and metre
Homage II is 6 lines in a single stanza. This poem did not settle on a metre of its own; the book it comes from is in iambic tetrameter.
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 ABAB-B areA · breakB · starA · makeB · hours · takeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| For you are younger than the mornings are | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| That in the mountains break; | 6 | ···/˘· |
| When upland shepherds see their only star | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Pale on the dawn, and make | 6 | ······ |
| In his surcease the hours, | 7 | ··˘/·/˘ |
| The early hours of all their happy circuit take. | 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.