Love and Life
THE way is steep, and hard to tread, and drear;Piercing and bleak the icy atmosphere.My feet are bruised and bleeding, and my eyesCan only with dim questionings seek the skies.How could I walk a step without thine aid?How face the awful silence unafraid?How bear the star-rays and the moon-glance cold?Loose not thine hold!
Earth and its kindly ways seem very far,And yet the shining skies no nearer are;Except for thee, dear Love, I could not goOver the hard rocks, the untrodden snow,But had sat down content with lower things,With scanty crumbs and waning water-springs,—A wingèd thing whose wings might not unfold:Loose not thine hold!
Loose not thine hold! let me feel all the whileThe quickening impulse of thy tender smileLuring me on, and catch, as if in trance,The lovely reverence of thy downward glance,The pity and the splendor of thy face,The recognition like a soft embrace:Until my feet shall tread the streets of gold,Loose not thy hold!
Words in this poem
- drear n.
- Sadness; dismalness.
- waning n.
- The act or process of waning, or decreasing.
- quickening n.
- The act or process of making or of becoming quick.
- 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,]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
Love and Life 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, Love and Life, in A Few More Verses (1889), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #49518, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/coolidge-few-more-verses/love-and-life.html, id L23449.
Form and metre
Love and Life is 24 lines in 3 stanzas of 8 lines each. Every stanza rhymes AABBCCDD. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 85%).
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 AABBCCDD drearA · atmosphereA · eyesB · skiesB · aidC · unafraidC · coldD · holdD
- 2 AABBCCDD farA · areA · goB · snowB · thingsC · springsC · unfoldD · holdD
- 3 AABBCCDD whileA · smileA · tranceB · glanceB · faceC · embraceC · goldD · holdD
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 way is steep, and hard to tread, and drear; | 10 | ·········· |
| Piercing and bleak the icy atmosphere. | 10 | /˘···/˘/˘· |
| My feet are bruised and bleeding, and my eyes | 10 | ·····/˘··· |
| Can only with dim questionings seek the skies. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| How could I walk a step without thine aid? | 10 | ·········· |
| How face the awful silence unafraid? | 10 | ···/˘/˘·˘/ |
| How bear the star-rays and the moon-glance cold? | 10 | ·········· |
| Loose not thine hold! | 4 | ···· |
| Earth and its kindly ways seem very far, | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| And yet the shining skies no nearer are; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Except for thee, dear Love, I could not go | 10 | ·········· |
| Over the hard rocks, the untrodden snow, | 10 | ·········· |
| But had sat down content with lower things, | 10 | ····˘/·/˘· |
| With scanty crumbs and waning water-springs,— | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| A wingèd thing whose wings might not unfold: | 9 | ·······˘/ |
| Loose not thine hold! | 4 | ···· |
| Loose not thine hold! let me feel all the while | 10 | ·········· |
| The quickening impulse of thy tender smile | 10 | ·/˘/˘··/˘· |
| Luring me on, and catch, as if in trance, | 10 | /˘········ |
| The lovely reverence of thy downward glance, | 10 | ·/˘/˘˘··/· |
| The pity and the splendor of thy face, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
| The recognition like a soft embrace: | 10 | ··˘/˘···˘/ |
| Until my feet shall tread the streets of gold, | 10 | ·········· |
| Loose not thy hold! | 4 | ···· |
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.