From Victor Hugo
CHILD, were I king, I’d yield my royal rule,My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due,My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool,My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool,For a glance from you!
Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs,Angels, the demons abject under me,Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs,Time, space, all would I give—aye, upper spheres,For a kiss from thee!
Words in this poem
- sceptre n.
- A staff or baton borne by a sovereign, as a ceremonial badge or emblem of authority; a royal mace. [F. sceptre, L. sceptrum, from Gr. shaft. See Shaft, and cf. Scape a stem, shaft.]
- whereto adv.
- To which; -- used relatively.
- abject a.
- Cast down; low-lying. [L. abjectus, p. p. of abjicere to throw away; ab + jacere to throw. See Jet a shooting forth.]
- chaos n.
- An empty, immeasurable space; a yawning chasm. [L. chaos chaos (in senses 1 & 2), Gr. Chasm.]
- teeming a.
- Prolific; productive.
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
From Victor Hugo is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems of the Past and the Present, Project Gutenberg ebook #3168; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Thomas Hardy, From Victor Hugo, in Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #3168, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/hardy-past-and-present/from-victor-hugo.html, id L16946.
Form and metre
From Victor Hugo is 10 lines in 2 stanzas of 5 lines each. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 84%). 97% of its stressed syllables fall where the metre puts the beat. The lines average 9.1 syllables.
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 ABAAB ruleA · dueB · coolA · poolA · youB
- 2 ABA-B airsA · meB · lairsA · spheres · theeB
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 |
|---|---|---|
| CHILD, were I king, I’d yield my royal rule, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| My chariot, sceptre, vassal-service due, | 10 | ·/˘/˘/˘/˘· |
| My crown, my porphyry-basined waters cool, | 10 | ···/˘/˘/˘· |
| My fleets, whereto the sea is but a pool, | 10 | ··˘/······ |
| For a glance from you! | 5 | ····· |
| Love, were I God, the earth and its heaving airs, | 11 | ········/˘· |
| Angels, the demons abject under me, | 10 | /˘·/˘/˘··· |
| Vast chaos with its teeming womby lairs, | 10 | ·/˘··/˘/˘· |
| Time, space, all would I give—aye, upper spheres, | 10 | ·······/˘· |
| For a kiss from thee! | 5 | ····· |
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.