Close at Hand
THE day is long, and the day is hard;We are tired of the march and of keeping guard,Tired of the sense of a fight to be won,Of days to live through and of work to be done,Tired of ourselves and of being alone.
And all the while, did we only see,We walk in the Lord’s own company;We fight, but ’tis he who nerves our arm,He turns the arrows which else might harm,And out of the storm he brings a calm.
The work which we count so hard to do,He makes it easy, for he works too;The days that are long to live are his,A bit of his bright eternities,And close to our need his helping is.
O eyes that were holden and blinded quite,And caught no glimpse of the guiding light!O deaf, deaf ears which did not hearThe heavenly garment trailing near!O faithless heart, which dared to fear!
About this text
Close at Hand is in the public domain. This text is taken from A Few More Verses, Project Gutenberg ebook #49518; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Susan Coolidge, Close at Hand, in A Few More Verses (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49518, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coolidge-few-more-verses/close-at-hand.html, id L23432.
Form and metre
Close at Hand is 20 lines in 4 stanzas of 5 lines each. The rhyme scheme is AABBB, complete in 2 of its 4 stanzas. The metre is iambic tetrameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 75%).
See other poems in iambic tetrameter.
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 AABB- hardA · guardA · wonB · doneB · alone
- 2 --AA- see · company · armA · harmA · calm
- 3 AABBB doA · tooA · hisB · eternitiesB · isB
- 4 AABBB quiteA · lightA · hearB · nearB · fearB
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 tetrameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| THE day is long, and the day is hard; | 9 | ········· |
| We are tired of the march and of keeping guard, | 11 | ··/·····/˘· |
| Tired of the sense of a fight to be won, | 10 | /········· |
| Of days to live through and of work to be done, | 11 | ··········· |
| Tired of ourselves and of being alone. | 9 | /·˘/··/˘/ |
| And all the while, did we only see, | 9 | ······/˘· |
| We walk in the Lord’s own company; | 9 | ······/˘˘ |
| We fight, but ’tis he who nerves our arm, | 9 | ·······/· |
| He turns the arrows which else might harm, | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| And out of the storm he brings a calm. | 9 | ········· |
| The work which we count so hard to do, | 9 | ········· |
| He makes it easy, for he works too; | 9 | ···/˘···· |
| The days that are long to live are his, | 9 | ········· |
| A bit of his bright eternities, | 9 | ·····˘/˘˘ |
| And close to our need his helping is. | 9 | ···/··/˘· |
| O eyes that were holden and blinded quite, | 10 | ····/˘·/˘· |
| And caught no glimpse of the guiding light! | 9 | ······/˘· |
| O deaf, deaf ears which did not hear | 8 | ········ |
| The heavenly garment trailing near! | 8 | ·/˘/˘/˘· |
| O faithless heart, which dared to fear! | 8 | ·/˘····· |
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.