To-Day
Voice, with what emulous fire thou singest free hearts of oldfashion,English scorners of Spain, sweeping the blue sea-way,Sing me the daring of life for life, the magnanimous passionOf man for man in the mean populous streets of To-day!
Hand, with what colour and power thou couldst show, in the ringhot-sanded,Brown Bestiarius holding the lean tawn tiger at bay,Paint me the wrestle of Toil with the wild-beast Want, bare-handed;Shadow me forth a soul steadily facing To-day!
Words in this poem
- populous a.
- Abounding in people; full of inhabitants; containing many inhabitants in proportion to the extent of the country. [L. populosus, fr. populus people: cf. F. populeux.]
- wrestle v. i.
- To contend, by grappling with, and striving to trip or throw down, an opponent; as, they wrestled skillfully. [OE. wrestlen, wrastlen, AS. wr, freq. of wr to wrest; akin to OD. wrastelen to wrestle. See Wrest, v. t.]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To-Day is in the public domain. This text is taken from A chant of love for England, and other poems, Project Gutenberg ebook #71425; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Helen Gray Cone, To-Day, in A Chant of Love for England, and Other Poems (1915), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #71425, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/cone-chant-for-england/to-day.html, id L22086.
Form and metre
To-Day is 10 lines in 2 stanzas of 5 lines each. The metre is dactylic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 77%).
See other poems in dactylic 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 old · fashionA · wayB · passionA · dayB
- 2 -ABAB ring · sandedA · bayB · handedA · dayB
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 dactylic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Voice, with what emulous fire thou singest free hearts of old | 14 | ···/˘˘/·/˘···· |
| fashion, | 2 | /˘ |
| English scorners of Spain, sweeping the blue sea-way, | 12 | /˘····/˘···· |
| Sing me the daring of life for life, the magnanimous passion | 15 | ···/˘·····˘/˘/˘ |
| Of man for man in the mean populous streets of To-day! | 13 | ·······/˘···· |
| Hand, with what colour and power thou couldst show, in the ring | 13 | ···/˘·/······ |
| hot-sanded, | 3 | ·/˘ |
| Brown Bestiarius holding the lean tawn tiger at bay, | 12 | ····/˘···/·· |
| Paint me the wrestle of Toil with the wild-beast Want, bare-handed; | 15 | ···/˘········/˘ |
| Shadow me forth a soul steadily facing To-day! | 12 | /·····/˘/˘·· |
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.