In a Heavy Hour
Be glad when danger pressesEach power your soul possesses!In greater strainYour strength shall gain,Till greater vict'ry blesses!Supports may break in pieces,Your friends may have caprices,But you shall see,The end will be,Your need of crutches ceases.--'T is clear,Whom God makes lonely,To him He comes more near.
Words in this poem
- 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
In a Heavy Hour 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, In a Heavy Hour, in Poems and Songs (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #6619, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bjornson-poems-and-songs/in-a-heavy-hour.html, id L29265.
Form and metre
In a Heavy Hour is 13 lines in a single stanza.
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 AABBACCDD-E-E pressesA · possessesA · strainB · gainB · blessesA · piecesC · capricesC · seeD · beD · ceases · clearE · lonely · nearE
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. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Be glad when danger presses | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| Each power your soul possesses! | 8 | ·/˘··˘/˘ |
| In greater strain | 4 | ·/˘· |
| Your strength shall gain, | 4 | ···· |
| Till greater vict'ry blesses! | 7 | ·/˘··/˘ |
| Supports may break in pieces, | 7 | ˘/···/˘ |
| Your friends may have caprices, | 7 | ····˘/˘ |
| But you shall see, | 4 | ···· |
| The end will be, | 4 | ···· |
| Your need of crutches ceases. | 7 | ···/˘/˘ |
| --'T is clear, | 3 | ··· |
| Whom God makes lonely, | 5 | ···/˘ |
| To him He comes more near. | 6 | ······ |
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.