Alone and Repentant
A friend I possess, whose whispers just said,"God's peace!" to my night-watching mind.When daylight is gone and darkness brings dread,He ever the way can find.
He utters no word to smite and to score;He, too, has known sin and its grief.He heals with his look the place that is sore,And stays till I have relief.
He takes for his own the deed that is suchThat sorrows of heart increase.He cleanses the wound with so gentle a touch,The pain must give way to peace.
He followed each hope the heights that would scaleReproached not a hapless descent.He stands here just now, so mild, but so pale; --In time he shall know what it meant.
Words in this poem
- daylight n.
- The light of day as opposed to the darkness of night; the light of the sun, as opposed to that of the moon or to artificial light.
- hapless a.
- Without hap or luck; luckless; unfortunate; unlucky; unhappy; as, hapless youth; hapless maid.
- shall v. i.
- To owe; to be under obligation for. [OE. shal, schal, imp. sholde, scholde, AS. scal, sceal, I am obliged, imp. scolde, sceolde, inf. sculan; akin to OS. skulan, pres. skal, imp. skolda, D. zullen,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Alone and Repentant is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems and Songs, Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, the Arthur Hubbell Palmer translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Alone and Repentant, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/alone-and-repentant.html, id L29253.
Form and metre
Alone and Repentant is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABAB. The metre is anapaestic common measure, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 83%).
See other poems in anapaestic common measure.
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 saidA · mindB · dreadA · findB
- 2 ABAB scoreA · griefB · soreA · reliefB
- 3 ABAB suchA · increaseB · touchA · peaceB
- 4 ABAB scaleA · descentB · paleA · meantB
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 anapaestic common measure. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| A friend I possess, whose whispers just said, | 10 | ···˘/·/˘·· |
| "God's peace!" to my night-watching mind. | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| When daylight is gone and darkness brings dread, | 10 | ·/····/˘·· |
| He ever the way can find. | 7 | ·/˘···· |
| He utters no word to smite and to score; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| He, too, has known sin and its grief. | 8 | ········ |
| He heals with his look the place that is sore, | 10 | ·········· |
| And stays till I have relief. | 7 | ·····˘/ |
| He takes for his own the deed that is such | 10 | ·········· |
| That sorrows of heart increase. | 7 | ·/˘··/· |
| He cleanses the wound with so gentle a touch, | 11 | ·/˘····/˘·· |
| The pain must give way to peace. | 7 | ······· |
| He followed each hope the heights that would scale | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Reproached not a hapless descent. | 8 | ˘/··/˘˘/ |
| He stands here just now, so mild, but so pale; -- | 10 | ·········· |
| In time he shall know what it meant. | 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.