Peace
Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,And all the little emptiness of love!
Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace thereBut only agony, and that has ending;And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.
Words in this poem
- cleanness n.
- The state or quality of being clean. [AS. cl. See Clean.]
- honour n.
- Esteem due or paid to worth; high estimation; respect; consideration; reverence; veneration; manifestation of respect or reverence. [OE. honor, honour, onour, onur, OF. honor, onor, honur, onur, honour, onour, F. honneur, fr. L. honor, honos.]
- dreary a.
- Sorrowful; distressful. [OE. dreori, dreri, AS. dreórig, sad; akin to G. traurig, and prob. to AS. dreósan to fall, Goth. driusan. Cf. Dross, Drear, Drizzle, Drowse.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Peace is in the public domain. This text is taken from 1914, and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #33902; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Rupert Brooke, Peace, in 1914 and Other Poems (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #33902, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/brooke-1914/peace.html, id L04727.
Form and metre
Peace is 14 lines in 2 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 93% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.6 syllables. 6 lines end on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 7% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See 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 ABABCDCD hourA · sleepingB · powerA · leapingB · wearyC · moveD · drearyC · loveD
- 2 ABCABC thereA · mendingB · breathC · thereA · endingB · deathC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour, | 11 | ··········/ |
| And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, | 11 | ··/··/˘··/˘ |
| With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, | 10 | ·······/˘/ |
| To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, | 11 | ···/˘··/˘/˘ |
| Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary, | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| And all the little emptiness of love! | 9 | ···/˘/˘·· |
| Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there, | 12 | ·········˘/· |
| Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending, | 11 | ·········/˘ |
| Naught broken save this body, lost but breath; | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there | 11 | /˘···/˘···· |
| But only agony, and that has ending; | 10 | ·/˘/˘···/˘ |
| And the worst friend and enemy is but Death. | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
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.