L'Audace
Daughter of God! Audacity divine--Of clowns the terror and of brains the sign--Not thou the inspirer of the rushing fool,Not thine of idiots the vocal drool:Thy bastard sister of the brow of brass,Presumption, actuates the charging ass.Sky-born Audacity! of thee who singsShould strike with freer hand than mine the strings;The notes should mount on pinions true and strong,For thou, the subject shouldst sustain the song,Till angels lean from Heaven, a breathless throng!Alas! with reeling heads and wavering tails,They (notes, not angels) drop and the hymn fails;The minstrel's tender fingers and his thumbsAre torn to rags upon the lyre he strums.Have done! the lofty thesis makes demandFor stronger voices and a harder hand:Night-howling apes to make the notes aspire,And Poet Riley's fist to slug the rebel wire!
Words in this poem
- audacity n.
- Daring spirit, resolution, or confidence; venturesomeness.
- inspirer n.
- One who, or that which, inspirer.
- drool v. i.
- To drivel, or drop saliva; as, the child drools. [Contr. fr. drivel.]
- freer n.
- One who frees, or sets free.
- breathless a.
- Spent with labor or violent action; out of breath.
- thesis n.
- A position or proposition which a person advances and offers to maintain, or which is actually maintained by argument. [L., fr. Gr. Do, and cf. Anathema, Apothecary, Epithet, Hypothesis, Parenthesis, Theme, Tick a cover.]
- aspire v. t.
- To aspire to; to long for; to try to reach; to mount to.
- rebel a.
- Pertaining to rebels or rebellion; acting in revolt; rebellious; as, rebel troops. [F. rebelle, fr. L. rebellis. See Rebel, v. t.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
L'Audace is in the public domain. This text is taken from Shapes of Clay (1903), Project Gutenberg ebook #12658; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Ambrose Bierce, L'Audace, in Shapes of Clay (1903), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12658, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bierce-shapes-of-clay/laudace.html, id L28099.
Form and metre
L'Audace is 19 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets, 53% of the lines: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 90%).
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 AABBCCDDEEEFFGGHHII divineA · signA · foolB · droolB · brassC · assC · singsD · stringsD · strongE · songE · throngE · tailsF · failsF · thumbsG · strumsG · demandH · handH · aspireI · wireI
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Daughter of God! Audacity divine-- | 10 | /˘··˘/˘˘˘/ |
| Of clowns the terror and of brains the sign-- | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| Not thou the inspirer of the rushing fool, | 11 | ···˘/˘··/˘· |
| Not thine of idiots the vocal drool: | 10 | ···/˘˘·/˘· |
| Thy bastard sister of the brow of brass, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| Presumption, actuates the charging ass. | 10 | ˘/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Sky-born Audacity! of thee who sings | 10 | ··˘/˘˘···· |
| Should strike with freer hand than mine the strings; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The notes should mount on pinions true and strong, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| For thou, the subject shouldst sustain the song, | 10 | ···/˘·˘/·· |
| Till angels lean from Heaven, a breathless throng! | 10 | ·/˘··/·/˘· |
| Alas! with reeling heads and wavering tails, | 10 | ˘/·/˘··/˘· |
| They (notes, not angels) drop and the hymn fails; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The minstrel's tender fingers and his thumbs | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘··· |
| Are torn to rags upon the lyre he strums. | 10 | ·········· |
| Have done! the lofty thesis makes demand | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| For stronger voices and a harder hand: | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Night-howling apes to make the notes aspire, | 10 | ·/˘·····˘/ |
| And Poet Riley's fist to slug the rebel wire! | 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.