The Voice of the Ancient Bard
Youth of delight! come hitherAnd see the opening morn,Image of Truth new-born.Doubt is fled, and clouds of reason,Dark disputes and artful teazing.Folly is an endless maze;Tangled roots perplex her ways;How many have fallen there!They stumble all night over bones of the dead;And feel--they know not what but care;And wish to lead others, when they should be led.
Words in this poem
- morn n.
- The first part of the day; the morning; -- used chiefly in poetry. [OE. morwen, morgen, AS. morgen; akin to D. morgen, OS. morgan, G. morgen, Icel. morginn, morgunn, Sw. morgon, Dan. morgen, Goth. maúrgins. Cf. Morrow, Morning.]
- artful a.
- Performed with, or characterized by, art or skill. [From Art.]
- maze n.
- A wild fancy; a confused notion. [OE. mase; cf. OE. masen to confuse, puzzle, Norweg. masast to fall into a slumber, masa to be continually busy, prate, chatter, Icel. masa to chatter, dial. Sw.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Voice of the Ancient Bard is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of William Blake, Project Gutenberg ebook #574; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: William Blake, The Voice of the Ancient Bard, in Poems of William Blake (1783–1794), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #574, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/blake-poems/the-voice-of-the-ancient-bard.html, id L02025.
Form and metre
The Voice of the Ancient Bard is 11 lines in a single stanza. The metre is trochaic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%). 92% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 7.8 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 9% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in trochaic 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 -AA--BBCDCD hither · mornA · bornA · reason · teazing · mazeB · waysB · thereC · deadD · careC · ledD
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 trochaic tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Youth of delight! come hither | 7 | ··˘/·/˘ |
| And see the opening morn, | 7 | ···/˘˘· |
| Image of Truth new-born. | 6 | /˘···· |
| Doubt is fled, and clouds of reason, | 8 | ······/˘ |
| Dark disputes and artful teazing. | 8 | ·˘/·/˘·· |
| Folly is an endless maze; | 7 | /˘··/˘· |
| Tangled roots perplex her ways; | 7 | /˘·˘/·· |
| How many have fallen there! | 7 | ·/˘·/˘· |
| They stumble all night over bones of the dead; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And feel--they know not what but care; | 8 | ········ |
| And wish to lead others, when they should be led. | 11 | ····/˘····· |
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.