The Prophet Lost in the Hills at Evening
Strong God which made the topmost starsTo circulate and keep their course,Remember me; whom all the barsOf sense and dreadful fate enforce.
Above me in your heights and tall,Impassable the summits freeze,Below the haunted waters callImpassable beyond the trees.
I hunger and I have no bread.My gourd is empty of the wine.Surely the footsteps of the deadAre shuffling softly close to mine!
It darkens. I have lost the ford.There is a change on all things made.The rocks have evil faces, Lord,And I am awfully afraid.
Remember me: the Voids of HellExpand enormous all around.Strong friend of souls, Emmanuel,Redeem me from accursed ground.
The long descent of wasted days,To these at last have led me down;Remember that I filled with praiseThe meaningless and doubtful waysThat lead to an eternal town.
I challenged and I kept the Faith,The bleeding path alone I trod;It darkens. Stand about my wraith,And harbour me--almighty God.
Words in this poem
- dreadful a.
- Full of dread or terror; fearful.
- haunted a.
- Inhabited by, or subject to the visits of, apparitions; frequented by a ghost.
- awfully adv.
- In an awful manner; in a manner to fill with terror or awe; fearfully; reverently.
- wraith n.
- An apparition of a person in his exact likeness, seen before death, or a little after; hence, an apparition; a specter; a vision; an unreal image. [Scot. wraith, warth; probably originally, a guardian angel, from Icel. vörthr a warden, guardian, akin to E. ward. See Ward a guard.]
- harbour n.
- A station for rest and entertainment; a place of security and comfort; a refuge; a shelter. [OE herbor, herberwe, herberge, Icel. herbergi (cf. OHG. heriberga), orig., a shelter for soldiers; herr army + bjarga to save, help, defend; akin to AS. here ar]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Prophet Lost in the Hills at Evening 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, The Prophet Lost in the Hills at Evening, in Sonnets and Verse (1923), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #60663, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/belloc-sonnets-verse/the-prophet-lost-in-the-hills-at-evening.html, id L21658.
Form and metre
The Prophet Lost in the Hills at Evening is 29 lines in 7 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 6 of its 7 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
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 starsA · courseB · barsA · enforceB
- 2 ABAB tallA · freezeB · callA · treesB
- 3 ABAB breadA · wineB · deadA · mineB
- 4 ABAB fordA · madeB · lordA · afraidB
- 5 ABAB hellA · aroundB · emmanuelA · groundB
- 6 ABAAB daysA · downB · praiseA · waysA · townB
- 7 ABAB faithA · trodB · wraithA · godB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Strong God which made the topmost stars | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| To circulate and keep their course, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| Remember me; whom all the bars | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| Of sense and dreadful fate enforce. | 8 | ···/˘·˘/ |
| Above me in your heights and tall, | 8 | ········ |
| Impassable the summits freeze, | 8 | ˘/˘˘·/˘· |
| Below the haunted waters call | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| Impassable beyond the trees. | 8 | ˘/˘˘···· |
| I hunger and I have no bread. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| My gourd is empty of the wine. | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Surely the footsteps of the dead | 8 | /˘·/···· |
| Are shuffling softly close to mine! | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| It darkens. I have lost the ford. | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| There is a change on all things made. | 8 | ········ |
| The rocks have evil faces, Lord, | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And I am awfully afraid. | 7 | ···/˘˘/ |
| Remember me: the Voids of Hell | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| Expand enormous all around. | 8 | ˘/˘/˘··· |
| Strong friend of souls, Emmanuel, | 8 | ····˘/˘˘ |
| Redeem me from accursed ground. | 8 | ˘/····˘· |
| The long descent of wasted days, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| To these at last have led me down; | 8 | ········ |
| Remember that I filled with praise | 8 | ˘/˘····· |
| The meaningless and doubtful ways | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| That lead to an eternal town. | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| I challenged and I kept the Faith, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| The bleeding path alone I trod; | 8 | ·/˘·˘/·· |
| It darkens. Stand about my wraith, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And harbour me--almighty God. | 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.