Canto IV CLXVIII
And send us prying into the abyss,To gather what we shall be when the frameShall be resolved to something less than thisIts wretched essence; and to dream of fame,And wipe the dust from off the idle nameWe never more shall hear,--but never more,Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same:It is enough, in sooth, that ONCE we boreThese fardels of the heart--the heart whose sweat was gore.
Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,A long, low distant murmur of dread sound,Such as arises when a nation bleedsWith some deep and immedicable wound;Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground.The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chiefSeems royal still, though with her head discrowned,And pale, but lovely, with maternal griefShe clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.
Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou?Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead?Could not the grave forget thee, and lay lowSome less majestic, less beloved head?In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled,The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy,Death hushed that pang for ever: with thee fledThe present happiness and promised joyWhich filled the imperial isles so full it seemed to cloy.
Words in this poem
- prying a.
- Inspecting closely or impertinently.
- 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,]
- sooth a.
- True; faithful; trustworthy. [OE. soth, AS. s, for san; akin to OS. s, OHG. sand, Icel. sannr, Sw. sann, Dan. sand, Skr. sat, sant, real, genuine, present, being; properly p. pr. from a root]
- immedicable a.
- Not to be healed; incurable. [L. Immedicabilis. See In- not, and Medicable.]
- maternal a.
- Of or pertaining to a mother; becoming to a mother; motherly; as, maternal love; maternal tenderness. [F. maternel, L. maternus, fr. mater mother. See Mother.]
- babe n.
- An infant; a young child of either sex; a baby. [Cf. Ir. bab, baban, W. baban, maban.]
- cloy v. t.
- To fill or choke up; to stop up; to clog. [OE. cloer to nail up, F. clouer, fr. OF. clo nail, F. clou, fr. L. clavus nail. Cf. 3d Clove.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Canto IV CLXVIII is in the public domain. This text is taken from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Project Gutenberg ebook #5131; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Lord Byron, Canto IV CLXVIII, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812–1818), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #5131, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/byron-childe-harold/canto-iv-clxviii.html, id L06634.
Form and metre
Canto IV CLXVIII is 27 lines in 3 stanzas of 9 lines each. Every stanza rhymes ABABBCBCC, the Spenserian stanza. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 89%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.3 syllables. 37% of the lines run on without a stop at the line end.
See other poems in the Spenserian stanza, 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 ABABBCBCC abyssA · frameB · thisA · fameB · nameB · moreC · sameB · boreC · goreC
- 2 ABABBCBCC proceedsA · soundB · bleedsA · woundB · groundB · chiefC · discrownedB · griefC · reliefC
- 3 ABABBCBCC thouA · deadB · lowA · headB · bledB · boyC · fledB · joyC · cloyC
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 |
|---|---|---|
| And send us prying into the abyss, | 10 | ···/˘···˘/ |
| To gather what we shall be when the frame | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| Shall be resolved to something less than this | 10 | ··˘/·/˘··· |
| Its wretched essence; and to dream of fame, | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| And wipe the dust from off the idle name | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| We never more shall hear,--but never more, | 10 | ·/˘····/˘· |
| Oh, happier thought! can we be made the same: | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| It is enough, in sooth, that ONCE we bore | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| These fardels of the heart--the heart whose sweat was gore. | 12 | ············ |
| Hark! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds, | 10 | ····˘/··˘/ |
| A long, low distant murmur of dread sound, | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Such as arises when a nation bleeds | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| With some deep and immedicable wound; | 10 | ····˘/˘˘˘· |
| Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground. | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Seems royal still, though with her head discrowned, | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| And pale, but lovely, with maternal grief | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief. | 12 | ··········˘/ |
| Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou? | 10 | /˘···/···· |
| Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead? | 10 | ···/˘/˘··· |
| Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low | 10 | ····˘/···· |
| Some less majestic, less beloved head? | 10 | ··˘/˘·˘/˘· |
| In the sad midnight, while thy heart still bled, | 10 | ···/······ |
| The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Death hushed that pang for ever: with thee fled | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| The present happiness and promised joy | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘·/˘· |
| Which filled the imperial isles so full it seemed to cloy. | 13 | ···˘/˘······· |
Notes from the edition 2
E. H. Coleridge's notes to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Works of Lord Byron, Poetry vol. II (John Murray, 1899; Project Gutenberg #25340). Bracketed passages are the editor's; unbracketed are Byron's own (Cantos I-III) or John Cam Hobhouse's (Canto IV, his 'Historical Notes'). Digit footnotes ('[17]') are informational and numbered continuously through the whole book; end-notes keyed '[n.B.]' (Byron) or '[n.H.]' (Hobhouse) follow each canto and are numbered afresh from 1 there. Both kinds are placed here by matching each note's own quoted words against the site's text, not by the number or stanza the note states, because the site's text (Gutenberg #5131) and this edition (#25340) are different editions with different stanza counts in Canto I. Lettered footnotes ('[h]', '[dn]') are manuscript and edition variant readings and are not harvested, matching the treatment of Don Juan's and byron-works-3's lettered notes.
- Stanza 1, line 9 [Compare Hamlet, act iii. sc. 1, line 76--"Who would these fardels bear?"]
- Stanza 2, line 1 [Charlotte Augusta (b. January 7, 1796), only daughter of the Prince Regent, was married to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, May 2, 1816, and died in childbirth, November 6, 1817.
Other poets produced their dirges; but it was left to Byron to deal finely, and as a poet should, with a present grief, which was felt to be a national calamity.
Southey's "Funeral Song for the Princess Charlotte of Wales" was only surpassed in feebleness by Coleridge's "Israel's Lament." Campbell composed a laboured elegy, which was "spoken by Mr ... at Drury Lane Theatre, on the First Opening of the House after the Death of the Princess Charlotte, 1817;" and Montgomery wrote a hymn on "The Royal Infant, Still-born, November 5, 1817."
Not a line of these lamentable effusions has survived; but the poor, pitiful story of common misfortune, with its tragic irony, uncommon circumstance, and far-reaching consequence, found its vates sacer in the author of Childe Harold.]
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.