Voice of the Priests
O school of vileness, treachery and lying,“Asylum of the oppressed,” in evil daysSounding to heaven the cruel oppressor's praise,While God and King and Fatherland denying!
O wicked was your heartless justifying,Your benediction on the torturer's blaze,Your curses on the doomed who dared to raiseA voice against thy tyranny outcrying.
Ready the Empire's brutal force to crave,Thou smil'st upon its prize unjustly won;God's prophet is become a lying knave.O saddest day the sun e'er shone uponWhen cowers the Cross, the standard of the slave,And Christ is made the tyrant's champion!
Words in this poem
- asylum n.
- A sanctuary or place of refuge and protection, where criminals and debtors found shelter, and from which they could not be forcibly taken without sacrilege.
- fatherland n.
- One's native land; the native land of one's fathers or ancestors. [Imitated fr. D. vaderland. See Father, and Land.]
- heartless a.
- Without a heart.
- crave v. t.
- To ask with earnestness or importunity; to ask with submission or humility; to beg; to entreat; to beseech; to implore. [AS. crafian; akin to Icel. krefia, Sw. kr, Dan. kr.]
- knave n.
- A boy; especially, a boy servant. Wyclif. [OE., boy, servant, knave, AS. cnafa boy, youth; cf. AS. cnapa boy, youth, D. kna, G. knabe boy, knappe esquire, Icel. knapi, Sw. knape esquire, knäfvel knave.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Voice of the Priests is in the public domain. This text is taken from By Frank Sewall (London: Osgood, McIlvaine & Co., 1893), Project Gutenberg ebook #56711, the Frank Sewall translation; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Giosuè Carducci, Voice of the Priests, in Poems of Giosuè Carducci (1893), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #56711, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/carducci-poems/voice-of-the-priests.html, id L26538.
Form and metre
Voice of the Priests is 14 lines in 3 stanzas. The rhyme scheme is ABBA, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%).
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 ABBA lyingA · daysB · praiseB · denyingA
- 2 ABBA justifyingA · blazeB · raiseB · outcryingA
- 3 ABABAB craveA · wonB · knaveA · uponB · slaveA · championB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| O school of vileness, treachery and lying, | 11 | ······/˘·/˘ |
| “Asylum of the oppressed,” in evil days | 10 | ˘/˘··˘/·/· |
| Sounding to heaven the cruel oppressor's praise, | 10 | /˘·/·/˘/˘· |
| While God and King and Fatherland denying! | 11 | ·····/˘·˘/˘ |
| O wicked was your heartless justifying, | 11 | ·/˘··/˘/˘·˘ |
| Your benediction on the torturer's blaze, | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| Your curses on the doomed who dared to raise | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| A voice against thy tyranny outcrying. | 11 | ·····/˘˘/·˘ |
| Ready the Empire's brutal force to crave, | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘··· |
| Thou smil'st upon its prize unjustly won; | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| God's prophet is become a lying knave. | 10 | ·/˘·˘/·/˘· |
| O saddest day the sun e'er shone upon | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| When cowers the Cross, the standard of the slave, | 10 | ·/···/˘··· |
| And Christ is made the tyrant's champion! | 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.