Past Days
'Tis strange to think there WAS a timeWhen mirth was not an empty name,When laughter really cheered the heart,And frequent smiles unbidden came,And tears of grief would only flowIn sympathy for others' woe;
When speech expressed the inward thought,And heart to kindred heart was bare,And summer days were far too shortFor all the pleasures crowded there;And silence, solitude, and rest,Now welcome to the weary breast--
Were all unprized, uncourted then--And all the joy one spirit showed,The other deeply felt again;And friendship like a river flowed,Constant and strong its silent course,For nought withstood its gentle force:
When night, the holy time of peace,Was dreaded as the parting hour;When speech and mirth at once must cease,And silence must resume her power;Though ever free from pains and woes,She only brought us calm repose.
And when the blessed dawn againBrought daylight to the blushing skies,We woke, and not RELUCTANT then,To joyless LABOUR did we rise;But full of hope, and glad and gay,We welcomed the returning day.
Words in this poem
- unbidden a.
- Not bidden; not commanded.
- resume n.
- A summing up; a condensed statement; an abridgment or brief recapitulation. [F. See Resume.]
- 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.
- joyless a.
- Not having joy; not causing joy; unenjoyable.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Past Days is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, Project Gutenberg ebook #1019; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, Past Days, in Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #1019, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/bronte-poems/past-days.html, id L13263.
Form and metre
Past Days is 30 lines in 5 stanzas of 6 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABABCC, complete in 3 of its 5 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 96%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 8.1 syllables. 2 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 13% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
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 -A-ABB time · nameA · heart · cameA · flowB · woeB
- 2 -A-ABB thought · bareA · short · thereA · restB · breastB
- 3 ABABCC thenA · showedB · againA · flowedB · courseC · forceC
- 4 ABABCC peaceA · hourB · ceaseA · powerB · woesC · reposeC
- 5 ABABCC againA · skiesB · thenA · riseB · gayC · dayC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| 'Tis strange to think there WAS a time | 8 | ········ |
| When mirth was not an empty name, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| When laughter really cheered the heart, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| And frequent smiles unbidden came, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| And tears of grief would only flow | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| In sympathy for others' woe; | 8 | ·/˘˘·/˘· |
| When speech expressed the inward thought, | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| And heart to kindred heart was bare, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| And summer days were far too short | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| For all the pleasures crowded there; | 8 | ···/˘/˘· |
| And silence, solitude, and rest, | 8 | ·/˘/˘··· |
| Now welcome to the weary breast-- | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Were all unprized, uncourted then-- | 8 | ········ |
| And all the joy one spirit showed, | 8 | ·····/˘· |
| The other deeply felt again; | 8 | ·/˘/˘·˘/ |
| And friendship like a river flowed, | 8 | ·/˘··/˘· |
| Constant and strong its silent course, | 8 | /˘···/˘· |
| For nought withstood its gentle force: | 8 | ··˘/·/˘· |
| When night, the holy time of peace, | 8 | ···/˘··· |
| Was dreaded as the parting hour; | 9 | ·/˘··/˘/˘ |
| When speech and mirth at once must cease, | 8 | ········ |
| And silence must resume her power; | 9 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘ |
| Though ever free from pains and woes, | 8 | ·/˘····· |
| She only brought us calm repose. | 8 | ·/˘···˘/ |
| And when the blessed dawn again | 8 | ····˘·˘/ |
| Brought daylight to the blushing skies, | 8 | ·/···/˘· |
| We woke, and not RELUCTANT then, | 8 | ····˘/˘· |
| To joyless LABOUR did we rise; | 8 | ·/˘/···· |
| But full of hope, and glad and gay, | 8 | ········ |
| We welcomed the returning day. | 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.