The Hope of the Streets
The still sweet meadows shimmered: and I stoodAnd cursed them, bloom of hedge and bird of tree,And bright and high beyond the hunch-backed woodThe thunder and the splendour of the sea.
Give back the Babylon where I was born,The lips that gape give back, the hands that grope,And noise and blood and suffocating scornAn eddy of fierce faces--and a hope
That 'mid those myriad heads one head find place,With brown hair curled like breakers of the sea,And two eyes set so strangely in the faceThat all things else are nothing suddenly.
Words in this poem
- cursed a.
- Deserving a curse; execrable; hateful; detestable; abominable.
- splendour n.
- Great brightness; brilliant luster; brilliancy; as, the splendor ot the sun. B. Jonson. [L. fr. splendere to shine: cf. F. splendeur.]
- myriad n.
- The number of ten thousand; ten thousand persons or things. [Gr. myriade.]
- strangely adv.
- As something foreign, or not one's own; in a manner adapted to something foreign and strange.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
The Hope of the Streets is in the public domain. This text is taken from The Wild Knight and Other Poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #12037; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: G. K. Chesterton, The Hope of the Streets, in The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12037, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/chesterton-wild-knight/the-hope-of-the-streets.html, id L17126.
Form and metre
The Hope of the Streets is 12 lines in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. The rhyme scheme is ABAB, complete in 2 of its 3 stanzas. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 88%). 98% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 10.0 syllables. 1 line ends on an unstressed syllable, a feminine ending. 42% 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 ABAB stoodA · treeB · woodA · seaB
- 2 ABAB bornA · gropeB · scornA · hopeB
- 3 A-A- placeA · sea · faceA · suddenly
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 |
|---|---|---|
| The still sweet meadows shimmered: and I stood | 10 | ···/·/˘··· |
| And cursed them, bloom of hedge and bird of tree, | 10 | ·········· |
| And bright and high beyond the hunch-backed wood | 10 | ·········· |
| The thunder and the splendour of the sea. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| Give back the Babylon where I was born, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| The lips that gape give back, the hands that grope, | 10 | ·········· |
| And noise and blood and suffocating scorn | 10 | ·····/˘·˘· |
| An eddy of fierce faces--and a hope | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| That 'mid those myriad heads one head find place, | 10 | ···/˘····· |
| With brown hair curled like breakers of the sea, | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| And two eyes set so strangely in the face | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| That all things else are nothing suddenly. | 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.