Safety
Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blestHe who has found our hid security,Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?'We have found safety with all things undying,The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth.We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing.We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever.War knows no power. Safe shall be my going,Secretly armed against all death's endeavour;Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall;And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.
Words in this poem
- undying a.
- Not dying; imperishable; unending; immortal; as, the undying souls of men.
- 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,]
- endeavour v. t.
- To exert physical or intellectual strength for the attainment of; to use efforts to effect; to strive to achieve or reach; to try; to attempt. [OE. endevor; pref. en- + dever, devoir, duty, F. devoir: cf. F. se mettre en devoir de faire quelque chose to try to do a thing, to go about it. See Devoir, Deb]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Safety 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, Safety, in 1914 and Other Poems (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #33902, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/brooke-1914/safety.html, id L04728.
Form and metre
Safety is 14 lines in a single stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 76%). 90% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.4 syllables. 5 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 A-A-BCBCDEDEFF blestA · security · restA · we · undyingB · mirthC · flyingB · earthC · throwingD · everE · goingD · endeavourE · fallF · allF
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 |
|---|---|---|
| Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest | 10 | ···/˘··/·· |
| He who has found our hid security, | 9 | ····/·˘/˘ |
| Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest, | 11 | ˘/········· |
| And heard our word, 'Who is so safe as we?' | 10 | ··/······· |
| We have found safety with all things undying, | 11 | ···/˘···˘/˘ |
| The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying, | 11 | ·····/˘··/˘ |
| And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth. | 11 | ···/˘··˘/˘· |
| We have built a house that is not for Time's throwing. | 12 | ··········/˘ |
| We have gained a peace unshaken by pain for ever. | 12 | ·····˘/˘···/ |
| War knows no power. Safe shall be my going, | 9 | ···/····/ |
| Secretly armed against all death's endeavour; | 10 | /˘·····˘/˘ |
| Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall; | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| And if these poor limbs die, safest of all. | 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.